Blog love

Now I'm hunting down inspiration again, I've found some gorgeous new blogs and tumblrs you may like. Beautiful photo reference here and generally inspiring finds:

Where the lovely things are
There are lots of good things on the interenet. And 99% of them seem to wind up here - fashion, art, jewellery, homewares, general inspiration. I spent a good day and a half trawling through the posts on Where the lovely things are. I challenge you to keep your credit card away from the loveliness. ;)


















Simply breakfast
Jennifer Causey is a photographer who takes droolworthy pics of her breakfast (hence the title).









A Cup of Joe
Joanna Goddard appears to have a direct link to awesome. She manages to find all manner of cool stuff to post to her blog. Thanks Jo!

















Fuck Yeah Hollywood
Pretty girls, interesting poses. All the usual art-fodder. And lots of it.













xxx kate

Amazing what you find...

..when you clean up.

For some ungodly reason, I had an uncontrollable urge to clean this morning (those who know me would be checking my forehead for signs of fever).

I cut a path through my upstairs 'studio' - really just a room-sized pile of canvases, frames, pencils, paints, paper, paintbrushes, wrapping paper, ribbons, fabrics and bubble wrap. And then got stuck into the kitchen and my desk.

I found a stack of originals - some completed, some half-done. Like these:



The bottom left one is a self-portrait I did for a magazine article some time ago. The other two I'll probably put up for sale in my Etsy shop when I re-open it later in the year.

xxxk

Back on the horse

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post. It was just the buck-up/support/kick-in-the-pants I needed!

I've decided to practice and play and not try to do finished pieces for a while.

And I'm going to post what I plonk on the page regardless of how it looks. Comments (positive or negative) are more than welcome.

Some of these are going to look like utter shite. Some will probably look OK. None will be finished. All will be messy.

Here's today's scribbles:



I quite like the eye-patch chick at the top. I don't mind the bottom left one (though she's pretty much my usual style) and I'm playing around with Ana Bagayan style lines a la the one at the bottom right. Audrey Kawasaki does the same type of thing with her heavy and light lines. I really like that. Will play around with them again later this week.

All in all, fairly crap effort, but truth be told, it was good to pick up a pencil and get back on the horse.

Yee-ha.

xxx kate

Really rather terrifying

OK, OK, after swearing black and blue that I was never going to pick up a pencil again, I'm now desperate - DESPERATE, people! - to create stuff.

But I don't know what.

And I don't know what with.

Should I stick with pencil? Try watercolour or ink? See if I can learn oil or acrylic properly?

And maybe I'll be really crap at it now.

I haven't lifted a finger artwise since September 09. Maybe it's not like riding a bike. And I'll have to start from scratch and be really bad at it for ages.

I had a go just before. And it was really bad. Of course, I wasn't really trying all that hard. Not taking enough care, just slapping something down. Wound up all muddy around the face and messy where I didn't want it to be messy.



And I've been painting something for work for practice. Again, not particularly happy with the result, but I need to start somewhere. It just feels like I'm repeating myself. It's nothing new, or fresh, or different.



It's really fucking scary.

I'm not sure I even want to try.

But I'm so bloody creatively frustrated. I've been moping around the house all day, doing a quick sketch here and there and hating the way they look. Looking at Audrey Kawasaki's work and getting completely bummed out that I'll never be as good as that. Searching for inspiration and having no idea what to do with it if I find some.

Anyone else been in this boat? Anyone given up art only to find that it won't give you up?

If so, let me know how it turned out.

I'll be here umming and ahhing over whether to pick up that pencil or paintbrush or just surf the net some more.

xxx kate

Into new music?

Here's a brand new blog you need to keep an eye on.

My art director Dave is obsessed with music - pretty much every type of music. And he finds great tunes I'd never otherwise hear.

Anyway, he's just started a blog to share his new music finds. It's called Hey Graham Listen To This and he's already got a couple of pretty cool tracks on it.

Keep an eye on this one. I reckon there'll be some new music faves popping up there fairly regularly.

xxx kate

PS. If you like what you hear, give him a comment. He's kinda new to the blogging thing and it'll make his day. ;)

Oh Audrey...

To blatantly rip off Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets - you make me want to be a better artist.

Hajimari was Audrey Kawasaki's first solo show in New York and I was thrilled to discover that she's posted her progress pics on her blog.

Get droolin':











xxx kate