Aloha dear people and how are you this sunny Saturday. This week was very long for me as I had a three day long art exam - UGH! It went quite alright actually and it was pleasant to sit in the quiet and just paint away. Using my lovely photos I took on one of my trips to Tip Top Photography (which I dearly miss) I painted a series of portraits onto open books to tell a story - the books helping with my whole theme of life stories. I plan to post the bestest ones on my instagram so do be sure to give me a friendly follow [shameless self promo] if you want to see some of what I made.

I totally expected the 15 hours to be the worst thing to go through as my teacher caused me much stress with her mad ideas that I hated but had to go along with. Anyway, I took control at the last second and went awol and did what I wanted to do - painting onto books. I have no idea how successful it will actually be and I'm unsure what grade I'll get for art but I'm just happy that it's all over now and I'm pleased with how it ended up.

Not long before my exam my dad asked me if I'll ever do more art after I finish working on it for formal education and I replied "not for a long time." But while I was painting during the exam I really enjoyed it and almost didn't want it to end and just paint forever so perhaps I will grab another old novel sometime and do a nice painting, however I have no idea how to justify just doing a nice painting and put all that effort in if it's just for enjoyment, what am I supposed to do with it then? Where do I put it? Nevertheless I would like to do a few nice doodles, sketches and maybe even paint in time, without a scouser forcing me to do some weird things - she once told my brother a painting on a car door would be a good idea! I celebrated the end of my suffering last night with a bit o' alcohol, which still remains not to be a messy experience - go me!

After everything I'd still like to make more art because I'm a creative person and now I'd be free to do what I think would look good so it wouldn't be so repelling aye. I would encourage other people to doodle too no matter how awful, and don't compare yourself to others who may be making something more photorealistic than what you're doing, just enjoy the doodle and crafts because without art - everything's just a little bit more boring.

Art doesn't have to just be with a brush or pencil, art comes in many forms and I'd love to not only continue blogging weekly but also get back on the youtube bus because I love a good ol' bit of film making. Anyway I think this lovely comic depicts the message beautifully...

Back in May of 2012 [cartoonist Gavin Aung Than] had seen the (now famous) speech of the bestselling author, Neil Gaiman, who delivered a special commencement address at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, in which he shared his thoughts about creativity, bravery, and strength. He encouraged the fledgling painters, musicians, writers, and dreamers to break rules and think outside the box. Most of all, he urged them to “Make Good Art”. Now, after seeing this speech, Gavin was inspired to create a special comic strip quoting a small portion of Gaiman’s address. I mean, the speech was about, “Hey! Go Make some ART”, so he did! [source]

I have said a lot so I shall leave you to ponder over it all.

Well hello you lovely lovely readers how are you today. I'm in my fluffy cosy dressing gown wishing I never got out of my comfy cosy bed this morning. The night before last I spent the night in London with my art class so it was nice to return to my own bed. It's an annual art trip where we go to London looking at all the huge galleries, taking pictures that may possibly help us with our projects and having general banter.

As I have mentioned before, I love London, there are a million different corners of the city that are so special and unique. Like the skateboard ramps in southwark smothered in colourful graffiti, which is a personal fave as I walk past it almost every time. Wherever I go I always think "that would make an amazing photo!" and I think that even more so in London. I hope to spend more time in London as the years go on, I even hope to go on days out there with my camera trying out street photography since it is so full of quirky treasures. I mean I'd love to live there but it is so expensive and doubt I'd realistically get so financially stable on my own to comfortably live there. Anyway, I thought I'd share with you my latest experience in my current favourite city as the last two days were quite eventful...

Firstly, in true "blogger" style, my outfit of the day, which to be honest I thought was quite "London-esque" and nice, and more importantly comfortable. I really liked my outfit on the first day, I swapped to a grey tshirt for the day after though.

A cream knitted jumper from Primark, black skinny jeans from H&M, blue denim jacket with brown boots and brown tartan scarf from New Look, a brown fur pom pom hat from a Christmas market stall outside New Look and my lovely black and rose gold KitSound "Milano" headphones - which I kept hidden under my scarf when I wasn't using them with the wire underneath my top so nobody knew I had something worth pickpocketing - clever I thought hahaa.

 We got off the train from Birmingham to Marylebone and headed straight to the first gallery. The group consisted of the year 13 art class - 7 girls including me (minus one who couldn't go), The year 12 art class and year 12 product design class. Due to hardly any people taking art or product design it is a very tight-knit trip where everyone bonds and has a nice, mostly relaxing time. The head of art, our second art teacher had to stay in school so somebody artistic could teach lessons, the product design teacher and a pe teacher, just so there was an adult male present for the lads in year 12.He even joked he didn't have to be there and would take people straight home to Birmingham if anyone misbehaved.


The first gallery we visited was the National Portrait Gallery, where I treated myself to a yellow magnet shaped like a camera, which is very me. Yellow is my favourite colour and you all know how I feel about cameras. (I was thinking about them just then and typed "yellow is my favourite camera") Then we headed around the corner to take a group photo. And proceeded to go into the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. I didn't take my camera with me so every photo was quickly taken on my phone but I still did my best and took another second to frame everything right.

It rained on and off both days we were there, I guess it really showed us the beauty of London in all weathers, and it wasn;t too heavy so it wasn't so bad.

We didn't stay in the National Gallery for very long at all, we got a few rooms in when an alarm went off, I first thought someone stepped too close to one of the special paintings (as I have done before) but then it was followed by a calm recorded voice over saying "a fire has been reported please leave the building." At which point the men and women in suits dotted around at every doorway watching over people told everyone to leave the room and followed us out to make sure everyone evacuated. It was all very dramatic and strange to suddenly see an art gallery so rammed with people. Usually everyone is spread out across the rooms so it doesn't really look like many people. But when you're all heading for the door at the same time, it adds up. Luckily I still had one class member in my sight so I wasn't alone as we soon found the rest of the group and went on straight to the Tate Gallery. (where I also treated myself to a small book of 55 photography tips)

The next day we went to the Saatchi Gallery, which had some REALLY weird things... They have an exhibition on right now called "Champagne Life" full of work from female artists but take it from me, there is some creepy stuff in there. Including an actual real stuffed horse that looks like it's stuck on a giant exercise ball, and wax figures that look like they're falling off hospital beds. I apologise to any offence to the artists but walking in and seeing that is shocking - perhaps that's the intention. But when studying art and being told it's about painting, drawing and tone and seeing art like that, it's so much different to what I've grown up identifying it as. However, the art certainly is interesting, despite the initial reaction of "what the fuck."

I bought this postcard from the Saatchi Gallery, keeping in line with my photography related gallery purchases hahaa. I like this because you can't see the faces of the photographers, they could be anybody. And in a weird way, I find it encouraging because I want to be in their position too one day - not an annoying paparazzi, just a normal photographer taking portraits of people or capturing events or street and travel photography. I look at this print and think "goals", even if it does place me on the other side of the camera, because I could be anybody, and I could even amount to somebody behind a camera like these people here.

When we got back to Marylebone station to catch our train back to Brum town after shopping at Oxford Street, we saw our train had been cancelled. Since my brother works for network rail I asked him to find out what happened and there was a fire on the train and a passenger pulled the emergency break. After the conductor shouted at them telling them they'd get fined for improper use, the passenger shouted back "well explain the fucking fire then" and pointed at the flames outside the carriage. Everyone evacuated and the fire was dealt with but trains from Marylebone were delayed until 5pm.

Our teachers took us back on the tube to catch a different train to Birmingham from Euston station but rushing around not knowing exactly what was happening other than our train had been delayed put me in a panic, I feared I'd either have an asthma or panic attack. I don't mean to be a drama queen or offend those prone to panic attacks but the way I felt, a panic attack seemed possible to me at the time. I was fast walking and trying to control my breathing, I have zero experience or knowledge of panic attacks but I did feel very uneasy, worried and panicked at not knowing what in the world was going on and where we were going, I just wanted to go home. I was at the back of our group struggling to keep up and listening to one of our teachers whispering under his breath at the gate worker to "take a day off" and "let us on" as the head of art was explaining the situation and showing him our tickets. We were let though and got on the train, it started moving as we sat down and I felt a bit sick but I put my headphones on and soon calmed down.

All panic and aching feet aside, I thoroughly enjoyed another trip to London and look forward to another. I also REALLY look forward to one with my camera to get those shots I always tell myself I'll stop to get one day. As always, let me know your own London experiences, or visits to your own favourite city. Don't forget to follow my instagram account and you can like these photos if you please :)