DVD - Step Up

Today I watched Step Up, I loved it! I felt for the characters, loved the music, and loved the fashion. I really wanna go to that school! Being an artist, I would love to jump in to the art classes you briefly get to glimpse. I loved how everyone there were pursuing their dreams, be it art, singing, making music, or dancing. I was never that dedicated when I was in school - I didn't have any idea what I wanted to do for the rest of my life at that age - who does? But I love the dedication they had, their mostly happy relaxed atmosphere there.

Here's the trailer:

My social circle has diminished since I left school and sixth form, I've changed jobs quite a lot, and haven't kept any long-term friends from there. I guess my social circle needs rebuilding! Perhaps going out and taking up lessons in something new might be a good way to make new friends? It takes courage to try something new like that, but also money, and I currently work part time. I do need to learn to manage my finances better, then maybe I can look towards doing this.

I loved the fashion I found in this movie, the main actress dresses very feminine in this movie, lots of floaty skirts over leggings, feminine tops - combinations of vests and shirts. She looked good. And what I really liked, was how she didn't have the figure of a stick insect - you could relate to her. I certainly don't have the figure of a stick insect, but I'm not obese either, I consider myself quite average in build, a little puppy fat to lose! lol! But I want to look good, and I want to dress more like a woman.

Today's Sketch - Blair (Terminator)

Continuing my daily sketches, I tried something a bit more taxing today - a figure study of the character Blair Williams from the movie Terminator Salvation. Yesterday's sketch was completely easy and lots of fun, this one certainly strained my meagre art skills! I enjoyed doing the details on the clothing, doing zips and curves in the clothing is fun for me, but getting features right, the hair, and especially the hands, is really hard work for me! Just shows what I need the most practice with! It's only now I look back on it I really see how big I've made her nose - it's actually smaller than her mouth! Ooops! Perhaps I should aim to do at least 1 - 2 portrait/figure drawing sketches a week, that way I will make progress on my people and make them more realistic - and easier to draw!

Any constructive criticism would be gratefully received!

In the Garden

Here are some photos from my garden! I love taking photos in the garden, especially when the sun is shining. I am most attracted by the flowers, insects and funnily enough, spiders too. Anything that captures my imagination and inspires me. So I wanted to share some of them with you on here!

Click any of the images below for a larger view!

This bee was fantastic, going in and out of the Foxglove petals!

Hungry Caterpillars!

This mouse was funny, I couldn't get a decent picture of him through the window, the sun was shining brightly and everything was reflecting in the glass. So I crept outside, and knowing how keenly they can hear things, I was very careful, and sneaked halfway down the garden to take the photos...

...then a bee buzzed past my ear, I duck suddenly, and the mouse runs off the bird feeder table, along the beam of wood on the fence, and freezes as if to hide against the wood of the fence - perfect photo of mouse doing trapeze acts for me! LOL!

This is all that's left of my nasturtium hanging basket!

I know it's hard to see, but this is the beginning of my French beans - where one of the flowers used to be. Makes for a beautiful picture even if you can't see it!

I love lilies, especially these yellow ones, whose seeds dry out and explode across the garden!

This bumblebee was fantastic, pausing on the French beans leaf to post for me - even moving his antenna in different poses for me!

I hope you enjoyed my photos! I have lots more to post if you do! :)

45min Sketch - Space Pod

After being inspired by the Lunchtime Sketches by DCriler in my last post, I had a go at a short sketch myself. As I work part time, and only have two official lunch breaks each week, only half an hour long, I don't think I can call mine Lunchtime Sketches. But I would like to do a 30 - 45min sketch each day, that would be similar to a Lunchtime Sketch. Today I sketched for 45 minutes after tea, I sketched a Space Pod from an exercise in my "Awesome Things to Draw" book. It may be a kids book, but it shows you fun things to draw in easy step-by-steps. Great for when you want something planned out for you!

I like how my space pod turned out, even experienting with using my eraser to create highlights on the nose cone and a little on the tail exhausts. Perhaps the nose cone is a little too dark, but I still had fun doing it! Just click the image above for a larger view, and feel free to comment below - I'd love to hear some constructive criticism, or even just that you like it! :)

Inspired by Lunchtime Sketches

I stumbled across an artist, DCriler, on the DrawnToday blog, where I found the Lunchtime Sketches post there, and Aspen's Story post on his own blog. I love how well detailed these sketches are, and how they're fantasy themed. These sketches took a couple of lunchtime breaks to complete, so it's great practice every day, and fun too. I'd love to try this, I only have half an hour lunch break, but I'm sure I could find some time each day to sketch. These look great, and would be fun to try.

I see on the DrawnToday blog he also did a quick master copy when he ran out of ideas - another great way to practice when you don't know what to do. This could be a good way to kickstart my creative juices and get me producing more of the art I want to! If I can sketch every day, as well as working on a piece or challenge each week, I should be able to improve and complete the work I want to do get done. Thanks for the inspiration, DCriler!

What did I do last month?

Today I find myself wondering what did I do last month. I know I didn't accomplish all my goals, though I found some new goals to try, and managed to do some things, and hope I've learned a better way to do some things. I have a bad habit of latching onto something, whatever goal it is, and doing nothing but that until I exhaust that particular goal, and then I move on to another, and do that until I exhaust that too. Maybe this month I should look to doing things in moderation, so I can learn to hold back on doing things to the point of exhaustion and never doing it again. I guess like my starsign, Taurus, I can tend to go at things like a bull at a gate!

Things I achieved last month:

• Learnt to crochet - Basics, but it's a start!
• Watched a ton of DVD's, and managed to make a dent in my collection, I will get them all tested!
• Managed to get up early with the help of Tools to Life site, and arrive at work on time! A miracle for me!
• Took part in a Carnival, first ever for me!

I think I have learned this month that I need to schedule things more loosely for me to do them, like Art, Crafts and Writing. I need to do things spontaneously if I am to enjoy them and not think of them as chores. In a way, I maybe need a checklist of tasks to do, just choose randomly at the time which I feel like doing - be it writing, art, crochet, scrapbooking, dolls house miniatures, DVD watching, Video Game playing. But when I've done it in the week, I must tick off that item, not to do it again that week, unless I've done everything else on the checklist. This might stop me from sticking to one thing, doing lots of that and ignoring everything else!

I'd like to progress with my art every week, and it's sad that I haven't done any drawing or art at all last month, and I want to have something to post. I want to create checklist, of Art, Writing, Crafts, and then sub-checklists within each section, so I can see what within those sections I can choose to do, i.e. the Art section would have various Art Challenges listed, along with study suggestions, and reference images to try, maybe even lessons from some of my books to try. I must have ideas and things to do in each section to try - or I won't have anything I can do when I have the time to do them! Then I can share with you what I do!

Marvel Ultimate Alliance on PS2 - I love it!

Today I played Marvel Ultimate Alliance on PS2, I loved it! I originally loved the X-Men Legends games on PS2, I loved being able to swap and choose which X-Men to have on your team, but with Marvel Ultimate Alliance, you get to choose from all of Marvel's heroes! I am a huge fan of comics, especially Marvel Comics, so this makes me feel very much like a kid in a toy shop!

The cool thing is, I can swap and change between all four active characters during gameplay, and I never know which one to stick with 'cos I love them all! They all appear strong and worthy opponents, albeit with differing abilities, and some characters are better at some things than others, so it does help to have a balanced group of strengths and abilities in each team, but it's just so much fun! I wonder now why I haven't played it before, 'cos I'm gonna be playing it so much now!

Marvel Ultimate Alliance