Cat

Good evening!

I'm still here. Are you?

I finally got around to completing another piece of art- yay- after not having completed any for quite a while. It's for a friend of mine who I write to and we send each other pictures/ photos/ art that we make. And no, we're not as pretentious as that sounds!

Here it is:

...And here are my workings:

Hope to be posting more artsy stuff and blog posts soon and more frequently. Watch this space!

SPACE.

35mm ...Again

I'm trying to get back into blogging on a more regular basis. I think this is the third this month, so that averages out as just under once a week- I'll take that!

I'm also trying to use my 35mm camera more often, by having it with me all the time and get into a habit of using it more than my phone camera.

Here are some of my favourites from my last film that I got developed yesterday:

New Ventures in Baking...

If you are a regular reader of my irregular blog, then you will know that I have started baking cakes as a new creative challenge/ hobby or whatever one may call it.

Recently though, as a different challenge and to keep things fresh, I wanted to try my hand at biscuits/ sweets- something I've never really looked into, besides eating them!

This is the fist batch I tried:

"stained glass" biscuits

It was more the aesthetics of these that took my fancy rather than anything else. I thought they would make great Christmas presents.

I had no idea how they'd turn out and was fairly nervous, but at the same time I was super excited, because it would be a new thing. I finished these at about 1am one evening! 

They look like how they're meant to and I was pleased with how they came out, but they didn't actually come off the baking sheet(!), so I had to bin them, unfortunately. It was the boiled sweets that just stuck to the paper, so next time I must grease the paper.

These are the next ones:

ginger biscuits

Because I didn't have enough time to make the previous ones again before Christmas without risking disaster, I decided to make some ginger biscuits instead. I drizzled them with dark chocolate to finish, because I thought it would compliment the ginger (in which it did) and also give the design of them a little "extra something"!

I was very pleased with the end result of these- and so was everybody who tried them! I will be making these in the future...

lemon creams

Here I strayed away from biscuits slightly, because I wanted to make something different. I remember making these when I was very young and remember them being lovely, so thought these should be the next thing I make.

These are actually Lemon Creams, rather than the peppermint ones I had previously made.

Again, I drizzled dark chocolate on these, to give them more of a crunch and also had something to do with the aesthetics. Warning: these are very moreish!

vanilla shortbread thins (shortbears)

I then wanted something to bake for my parents. I had just bought a bear shaped biscuit cutter and was longing to try it out, because super cute! I decided to make vanilla shortbread thins (in the shape of a bear). I dusted these with icing sugar to add an extra sweetness.

I had never made shortbread before, but these turned out pretty well, plus the bear shape made them even more tempting!

...And lastly:

rum truffles

I wanted to try another completely different thing here and I am so pleased I did- these were delicious! The flavour was quite rich, but as long as you don't eat more than one or two at a time (though fairly impossible to do), then it's not a bad thing. I added some orange extract to outer chocolate coating and also made that with predominately milk chocolate, rather than plain as the recipe suggested. I think they would have just been too strong if I used dark on the outer, too. I think if I made these again, it would be nice to add some glacé cherries to the inner and maybe more rum- flavour was a little too subtle. Be great to try out different flavours of truffle. Any suggestions, send 'em my way!

I'm really enjoying this baking hobby(?) of mine at the moment. I challenge myself each time I make something and that is largely part of the enjoyment. It's also a lot about the excitement of the unexpected and also getting to try what I make and seeing how I can improve. 

I've always enjoyed baking, especially as a child, but I think I'm now more of an age where I can appreciate it in a different way to when I did when I was young. I'm also getting much more confident with baking and I'm even starting to add my own twists to things, rather than following the recipe step for step, ounce for ounce. I can't wait to see how much I improve throughout the year and how many more different things I make. For Christmas, I was given a fair amount of baking equipment, so I think baked goods from the Flora Martyr kitchen may keep on coming... Watch this space!

xo

More 35mm

Here's some from the second roll of film I got developed- I'm really liking this camera! I'm still only getting used to it e.g. how it works in what light etc, but I can see a lot of potential here. Plus, because it's so small and light, I can basically carry it with me everywhere, which is what it was intended for on purchase...

Portrait of Myself

A while ago (December 2014) I was asked by some old university friends to do some rotoscope animation on a music video they were making. Since this video they have now set up a production company, with website soon to be released- will link when I have the go ahead!

Because of the work I did on their video, they kindly asked me to be part of the 'associated artists' section of their website and for this, I was to take an Instax (modern day polaroid) picture of myself.

This is the result. I quite like a portrait of myself every so often, especially when it's a fairly 'artsy' one, like so.

It says 'animator' at the bottom and I really wish I had the time to do more animation these days, so if any of you guys do want to hire me for anything animation related (or just anything creative), then please feel free to do so #gettingdesperatenow 

Photo credit goes to Ben Fuller.

I Finally Got Some Photos Developed

...pretty much self explanatory blog post due to the title!

Anyway, HELLO! How are you? Even, who are you? I've not blogged in so long, I have no idea who you even are anymore or who I am, for that matter.

I haven't been doing much creative things lately, because I have a day job which consumes most all of my time these days. Fun.

Saying that, I have been taking quite a few photos with my new camera (see last blog post) and here are some of the results:

I went to Southend on holiday in November, so sue me.

My [fairly] New Toy

Isn't she lovely?!

I've been wanting to start shooting on film again for a long time now and the other week, I decided to get myself a 35mm.

I wanted to scale down from my analogue SLR, because I want something I can carry around all/ most of the time and one of my main reasons for getting rid of my previous one was because it was too big and heavy, especially when you were carrying it for more than a couple of hours.

I also wanted something that wasn't fully manual. Why??? Because I wanted something a little more "fun", I suppose and something I didn't have to think about all that much. Also, so friends who don't necessarily know all that much about photography can use it too.

I've yet to get a film developed, but I have been taking a few pictures. Watch this space for the photos (providing they turn out well)!! 

IWONAPHOTOCOMPETITION

I saw advertised on Twitter, a photo competition to design the cover of the Autumn/ Winter menu of a fairly local pub I go to.

I thought I may as well give it a go, because as it's free entry I've nothing to lose [besides around five minutes of my time whilst I attach a photograph to an email, but I'm sure I can live with that]. I wasn't expecting to win or anything, but I received an email about a week or so later *spoiler alert* telling me I had won! 

It was pretty nice news to hear, especially amongst all the rejections I've been getting lately. 

Here's the design:

And here's a link to the place, if ya wanna go check it out: http://www.newcontinental.net

Peace xo

TBT #6

Apparently I was meant to post this last week, but clearly didn't. How I love lack of time...

Anyway, posting it now, so read up, yo! 

I thought this one is slightly appropriate to post today, because this morning I have been editing something similar:

I made this almost two years ago now. I was commissioned by a local arts cafe/ bar to film and edit their Christmas/ winter solstice event to put on their website to act as a promo for the venue. It was filmed across three days.

It was a fun film to make as I think bands are really interesting to film, because of the style of shots you can get when filming a band, especially when there's nice lighting like this. BOKEH. BOK-YEAH. SORRY.

I always hate looking back on a film I've made, because I think of so many ways I can improve it, but at the same time I'm always slightly impressed with my achievements. Makes sense? Nope, didn't think so either. For the time that I made it, it was probably the best attempt, but if I made it now, I reckon it'll look a lot, lot different. Maybe not "better" as such, but definitely improved both stylistically and technically.

Look! I made more cakes!

As you may remember from a couple of posts ago, I made a cake. As in, I (me) actually actively bought some ingredients and went in the kitchen and made them so they don't look like just ingredients anymore and walked out of the kitchen with a cake in my hands. That.

I really enjoyed making the cake and enjoyed sharing it when done (and getting good feedback on the taste), so I continued to bake a cake every week from then on. I also started watching GB Bake Off (yes I know I just admitted to watching a TV programme) for inspiration. And it's been working.

It's a really fun hobby to get into as for me it's a new challenge each time, as these are mostly cakes I've either never made before or if I have made them, I haven't made them since I was about twelve. It's also creative, but not in the way I usually do creative, such as art or filmy stuff and it's nice to have a change from that.

I've even started an Excel spreadsheet for all of the cakes I make/ things I bake. This includes date made, the cake made, score out of ten and any comments or improvements. Yep, I'm a full on geek.

Here's some I made earlier:

Pineapple Upside-down Cake 

Coffee Meringue Crunch Cake

Ginger Cake

Any suggestions, throw them at me! ...But I'm not promising you'll get a slice ;)