Tiwidot

Think Chocolate!

I wouldn’t class myself as a chocolate lover, i’m more of a sweet person, fizzy ones at that. But we all have our moments; and this doesn’t really have anything to do with those moments, but I thought it would make a nice intro to something chocolate related. 

Think Chocolate!! By Bloomsbury & Co, their totally awesome packaging, which makes chocolate a bit more playful (for adults) and a bit less posh. Playing on the jokes and facts around chocolate; the packaging caught my eye in the supermarket. If I was feeling rich that day, I would have bought every pack available, for good design sake. But this time I was smart, and decided to check out the other designs online. Turns out they have a huuge range! Some for me weren’t so great, some were absolutely brilliant, especially the ones which imitate medical packaging. So yes, GO NOW! and check out their range! I still have no idea if the chocolate itself is any good, but they’ve at least caught my attention, and i’m doing some free advertising for them. So there will be somene…at some point, who will eat their chocolate =D

Think Chocolate

Reminders by Erin Hanson

I found myself really relating to this; not that I need constant reminding of things, I remember things, but sometimes it doesn’t always register. These little pieces by Erin Hanson, just puts it nice and bluntly about everyday little things you need to do, just to keep yourself in check. What other reminders can you think of? Right now I’m trying to think about habits that I may need to pick up, or quit, (off the top of my head: stop leaving mugs in bedroom, don’t terrorize cat) and make some visually interesting reminders, for myself…That I will most likely become accustom to. Damn.

Westminster Illustration Degree show was totally aweesoome!

Going to this show has made me realise how much I LOVE illustration. I had doubts before on it whilst I was veering back towards graphics and advertising. But the way some of the students combined illustration with say, advertising and packaging; it was so inspiring. The variety in the show was amazing, from more graphic to fashion to 3d, as getting jobs as an illustrator isn’t particularly easy, having a bit of variety in your portfolio really does wonders. Im sure of it. Well, its something i’m definitely going to try out. Now the pressure is on. With D&AD coming up in about 2 weeks, I have a hell of a lot to do; in order to make a (as they say in chinese) ‘can see the light’ sort of portfolio, meaning, something that won’t embarrass the hell out of me, and something (or some things) that I can actually be proud of and be convincing. Whatever that is in their at the moment..hmm…doesn’t mean a great deal to me, and isn’t showing enough of what I want to do. After seeing the amazing portfolios at Westminster, I feel as if..hmm.. I should probably do another degree. Or just generally get something done. Here we go!

From Westminster, these guys really stood out to me, check them out! ( * are my absolute favourites, with a kick of inspiration)

- Nicole Hollas
-Melody Seal*
-Fuad Ali*
-Emma Cowley
-Rashika Varsani
-Emily Bakes
-Joanna Cheung*
-Chetan Kumar
-Anna Lisa Reynolds
-Sarah Hall*

Je suis de retour!!…Well…Sort of…

Deadlines. Check. Summer show. Check. Time to breathe..getting there. Finally able to push myself back into this, even though its just a quick quick message, I like to show that I’m still here =D. Just about. Plus, now that I’m in the process of making this my main link for showcasing my stuff (deviantart..hmm..skeptical), I should really be keeping this more up to date. Things should be getting a little easier as this week it’s going to be a bit calmer with all the graduate shows going on. The only thing left. D&AD New Blood Exhibition, two more weeks of re-working and more cutting and pasting and banging boards together. Not the most stimulating environment. But, hopefully it will be worth it. However, I’m not so wild on showcasing any of my stuff right now. Yes they’re aesthetically alright, but due to the lack of time, there were lots of mindless illustrations. Which would be fine, if they were under a title of ‘mindless illustrations’ (hmm, that’s an idea). But it feels as if they are all empty, empty shells waiting to be filled with a feeling, personality, life(or death). Realising that as I anally sit there with my tablet, clicking away at each individual line, it feels as the more i’m ‘perfecting’ it, the more the life is being sucked away into this vacuum of..perfectionismishy thing. I think its time to go back to the basics and just draw out my ideas and screw the finished thing..just for now =) Then maybe I will find the thing I need to make the impact I want. Right now. I sooo need to slleeeep!

Away until graduation. But is here to procrastinate.. just a little bit.

Hello all! I feel that I should at least, have a message here to say to that i’m going to temporarily stop blogging, due to the mass of deadlines looming ahead. I must say though. Looking back, starting this blog when I was on the brink of going into crazy work mode wasn’t such a good idea; my lack of input makes this not so interesting. But! It has indubitably cleared and refreshed my mind in the initial stages, illustrating for this blog has been exciting, and I am hugely looking forward to getting back to it. During my times of procrastination, I could, do a few more for this. But it takes up far too much time, and the guilt starts eating away at me. Haha. So I shall keep to a less time consuming method..uhh..not drawing.  =D But just a hello and a goodbye, I shall leave it here for now. Au revoir!

Lady Gaga: Love Game

Being the late person that I am when it comes to music. Only recently realising that ‘Just Dance’ was by Lady Gaga, catchy, a very likable song etc etc. So I decided to look into her a bit more and see what the hype was about. Then stumbled on to YouTube and found one of latest songs (?): Love Game. My gosh!! It’s not the song that drew me that much (although I found myself loving the song as well =D ), but with the video, it’s so inspiring.Ok, it can easily look like a very sexed up video, but unlike a lot of deliberately ’sexed up’ videos, which tend to be purely bare and sexy bodies; this one has a very interesting mix of Lady Gaga’s passion and quirkyness for performance, art and fashion. Oh oh, and her movement and body language, yes yes. I wouldn’t describe it as ‘cool’, or hot (like previous entry on BoA’s Eat You Up), I don’t actually know what words I use apart from ‘interesting’, being the closest description; and I would find myself studying and interpretting with a lot more depth than I would normally with a music video. From the combination of the style of dance with her outfits and the performance art style intro with the chain mail, it has most definitely sparked some inspiration, in a way that I did not expect; and it’s very refreshing to see something that makes you go, hey! that’s a bit different, in a non deliberately being different way for the sake of being different, and breaking you out of your comfort zone. LOVE GAME

The best way to sum it up for me: Lady Gaga….or at least from this video = Art.

(Not sure how much of what I said makes sense..Obviously my mind is still not awake from my post-driving test sleep and is still a bit duuhh.)

Post-It note madness

Sometimes it doesn’t seem that there is any point on writing an entry in a diary or journal when you only have a really brief and random storyless point. You know, just a thought, a feeling, or something, like the ones you put on your Facebook status. But you don’t really want to share it out with the world, but at the same time you want to get it out. My resolve? Post-it notes! Not only, do the ones I get are so incredibly cute, but they seem to do the job better. The post-it is just as random as the thought that pops up in your head, as you stick it randomly on your wall/mirror/toilet/ surface. Eventually when those thoughts are all displayed on your wall, you can reflect, make decisions..make decisions on not deciding, etc; they also remind you of the moment when you wrote it. Well, all this happens to me anyway. I love it, it’s almost like a photograph, a snapshot of that moment in time. This is only the beginning…

Odd hobby no.1: My bookshelf

And we say hello again after such a long break. Won’t be having illustrations up for a little while, due to the workload at uni and so on and so fourth, but lots of things have been happening and i’m still bursting to share with all!!
Firstly, we shall start with my bookshelf. Days have gone by where I’ve been trying to get things done, but my heart wasn’t all into it..why??.. the bookshelf, it was calling to me, it was such a wreck after a mini book raiding session with Lou Lou, and I simply could not be bothered to tidy it up. Odd though, seeing as it the main source of my inspiration…well, the books on it, rather than the shelving..of course. So, after a final shout, I got up from wherever I was, put my book down, and got reorganising.
I love rearranging and reorganising things, then seeing the finished result as perfectly as I could get it…ok ok, I admit, I got a bit anal with this, when I started to line the spines of the books together.

Nasu no age-bitashi (Aubergine)

It’s a dish too awesome for words. I’ve been an average fan of aubergine, depending on how it’s cooked, until yesterday, I went to Tokyo Diner and just for a bit of veg to my meal, I ordered a dish of aubergine age-bitashi. Wooow, I loved it, it was marinated in something oily, but it didn’t have that oilyness you would normally get from oily foods (?). I liked it so much, I went on a hunt to Japan centre and raided all the japanese cookbooks to find the recipe. With only ONE book that had it, but I wasn’t ready to pay x amount for one recipe. Although I have been after a japanese cookbook for a while…but little student says go on amazon =)..SO! I went on to browse the web for more info, and found one amazing lady who had it on her blog on MySpace. After a good nights sleep and a trip to the local japanese grocers, it was time to relive that yummy feeling once again! Although it tasted different from what I had in the restaurant, it still tasted quite nice, but will probably have to adjust some of the quantities in the flavouring, for myself, I would have liked it with a little less flavouring, for most others, I think what was done was just about right. Should have done more though… between four people, one (biig) aubergine and one courgette, was obviously not enough…

Oh! Also on my journey of food hunting, I found three other interesting aubergine recipes, which I will, in due course, try out! =D

Chocolate Jetpack: Ta Da!

 A few tweaks and a hungry stomach later, we can happily say that the ChocolateJetpack mini man is finally done! (or so I hope…hehe). What next? Seeing this little dude in some laser shooting action (I have no idea why…)

=)

The home of ChocolateJetpack