art equals happy.

I was feeling done in... couldn't win. :: My Life & Art Journal.

'Had he lived to-day he would still have had machines to fight, but he could at least have seen that a machine can be a good servant – if a bad master.' (Holbrook, 1947)

I've been thinking so much about this. About our reliance on machines. On how much 'screen time' we get everyday, every hour, every week... How I would like to live my life and how I do live it. I guess, doing an essay on William Morris and Socialism and how imporant it is to do 'useful work, not useless toil' (Morris in Holbrook, 1947) will do that to you.

It's been a tough month or so at college. Let's just say that Second Year is kicking my butt.And I lost all of my unpublished photos/videos from 2012 (and some from 2011) in a harddrive failure. Luckily I still have copies of the things I posted online- but there was a lot of blog content and college work that evaporated from exsistence. Just that like. 
Scary.

It's setbacks like this that make it really hard to keep my head above water (Like- it's about 10x harder already because I have to deal with a chronic illness). All of that hard work. Gone. Poof. My body is already giving up on me rather rapidly (too many deadlines), and my brain is really struggling to keep pace. I know healthy, young, happy students who are finding it too much- I really thought I was going to crack!

But, one thing this illness has taught me: I AM STRONG.

I may spend a few days in bed, I may not go to all of the exhibitions, I may have werid routines or have to take a bus instead of walking- but I know I can always do it. Whatever it is- I can do it. Pass A-levels? Sure. Do a 2 year course in 1 year? Alright. Deal with a broken heart/abandonment? Hell yeah. Be a vendor at Renegade? Obviously. Get a degree? LETS DO THIS! 

So this is kind of half a pep-talk and half an 'I'm really sorry about the blog being empty' post. I don't know about you, but hearing someone say 'it's going to be okay' or 'it will all work out' doesn't do anything for me (kind of makes me want to yell into a pillow, haha!)- SEEING someone prove that they can win when they are against a lot of stuff- makes me realise that if they can suck it up and do it, so can I. 

I know a lot of people are doing exams right now, I know it's 'finals week' and there are projects and essays to hand in. YOU CAN DO IT PEOPLE. It's probably going to be hard, but I believe in your strength. And hopefully, you can find something that makes it fun and if it's worth doing that shouldn't be too hard.

Love you.

p.s. Loosing all those photos and videos made me really really sad- but life carries on and new photos are waiting to be taken. Sorry for the delay. <3

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Holbrook, J. (1947) On Art & Socialism. Essays & Lectures by William Morris. London : Purnell and Sons Ltd.

More memories from July. :: S.A. Sketches

Here are some of the remaining pages that I haven't shared yet from my trip to South Africa last July to visit my grandparents. If you haven't seen the other pages, you can see all my adventures here. I've still got loads of photographs, and some sketches from when we went to a game park to share- just don't want to overwhelm the eyes with holiday photos. haha. Anyway, here we go!

Painting postcards. :: SA Sketches

From a magical couple of days where Ted and I painted in the garden...
I mostly made postcards for friends back home.
I've still got a couple of these postcards, if anyone wants one, e-mail me ($4 and I'll write you a little message!) kim@artequalshappy.co.ukSee more South Africa adventures here.

Summer 2011 :: Notebook & Drawings.

Hello. [: Like most people who do creative things, I keep a notebook- one I carry around with me everywhere. They tend to last me a season, depending on how big it is, and what else I'm working on. In the Summer of 2011 there was a lot of product designing for Renegade, to-do-lists, blogging lists, notes from galleries and films, and colourwork pattern designing.This notebook has squared paper in it. It's A4, so the perfect book to doodle and work out patterns for new knitting experiments. Drawing on a grid is something that I love to do. I got this book out in all kinds of places to quickly jot down shapes and patterns I was thinking of. Here are some peeks from those times... (You might even recognise some patterns that become more finished things!)**Please remember that these are my designs and should not be copied or reproduced without my premission beforehand. Copyright. Thank you for respecting me and other artists that share work online!**

Thanks for letting me share- I hope this inspires you to try and doodle more in your free time! :] There is inspiration everywhere in this world of ours- if we open our eyes and look around!

Daily Sketches. :: SA Sketches.

A few more pages from the notebook I kept whilst in South Africa.

We spent a lot of time talking about art and dreams and making it as an independent business. Some of my favourite memories.
See more things from my trip here.

The Icy City. :: Drawings.

Spent the day yesterday on buses and around Spitalfields.

It was cold and the city was cold
and the sky was a flat grey and the buildings hid it from view.
Except this steeple.

It stood alone and lonely
against the cold London sky.
It was quiet
while the city was chiming and chattering and moving. It was still.
I moved slow against the crowds
of rushing feet.

With my velvet gloves on, I felt the city
rumble beneath my tired feet.

Using the old Camberwell Blog again... :: BA Illustration.

So- as usual, this blog gets a little quiet around a busy time for me at college. We've got a demanding lecture sheduale and working breifs this year (not that last year wasn't demanding, just in different ways). I am really enjoying second year a lot a lot. Really using the time to experiment and think and grow and gather all my thoughts together.
You can see some of the stuff I've been doing over on my Kim Smith Does Camberwell Illustration blog. It's more of a 'working' blog- and shows my process and the good and bad and all the in betweens. As well as some natter, and few interesting links here and there..&yes- I AM spinning for college. haha. Well- a little bit anyway. This project we are doing is seriously drawing based- and if I had a couple more weeks or a knitting machine- there would be a lot more knitting going down. Anyway. Off to do a bit more. Love, Kimxo

Settling in. :: S.A. Sketches.

After such a long plane ride, it took me a few days to recover from the strain of all the travelling. A lot of sleeping in and card playing and drawing on the couch.We went out to visit a little exhibition that Ted was in. :] Some days, my journal entries were more like diary entries. Writing, although more like short sentences to remind myself of things, rather than a dialouge/ramble.Also- I was only using one side of the sketchbook at the begining- something which my tutors keep telling me a GOOD thing- so you can easily take out pages as use them as originals, but which I find rather difficult. I'm afraid the one-side-only rule didn't last very long with this sketchbook. Win some. Lose some. haha. 
Kimxo 

The Start. :: S.A. Sketchbook

While I was there, I wanted to make a point of remembering as much as possible. Besides taking pictures and hearing stories, I also kept a journal & tried to write/draw/paste/paint in it everyday. Obviously, doing it during the day was the best (like while we were out or during tea time) but Mum, Dad and I had some down-time in the late evenings & I invariably spent that time drawing in here. It was nice to reflect & add to what I'd done during the day, and to capture snippets of conversation, or patterns that are particular to that time/place... One of the things that reminds me of my Grandpa is water colours. I use them alot in my illustrations anyway but I wanted this journal to mainly be about them. So no matter what I added; pen, pencil, paper... the watercolours would be a running theme throughout the book. If anyone is wondering how I travelled with watercolours(because they are so messy), I use a brush pen (filled with water) and a travel set, that has space to mix colours. Would you like to see photos of what my bag usually looks like?This was my first attempt at drawing Ted- for some reason, I just can't get his face right. As I share more pages, you'll see my various attempts. haha. Some things are just like that. :]

This and That pages for Kara. <3 :: Scrapbooking

Sweet Kara Haupt asked me to do a few pages as examples for her newest and greatest class called This & That. I've been following along and I've got to say it's super inspiring! The format of the class is really easy to access and the pages she's shared are beautiful along with all the tips that make it worth while! See some examples by other bloggers here. These are two pages I've made so far...Prompts 14. and 15.
One of the great things about this class is that all the technique tips and prompts can be mixed and matched. 
Products used: Hand Screen Printed paper by me(from an old school project). Yellow vintage office folder. Elsiecake's instax stickers (from 'Our Story' set). Various cardstock. Hambly overlay. Brown lick and stick paper tape. White pen(Pentel Hybrid Gel Grip), black pen(Pilot G-TEC-C4). Staples.That's a picture of my Grandpa while he was travelling around with his marionette puppets. <3(please excuse the messy hair)Prompts 18 and 4. 
Products used: Amy's photograph. Half Calf paper by Mandi. Crocheted Doily. Lined paper. Black pen(Ball Pentel Fine Point R50). Yellow star and brown circle 'Tower' office labels (South African). White pen(Pentel Hybrid Gel Grip). Thread.I haven't journalled or scrapbooked in a long while, so it was really great to get back into it. In fact, I spent today doing some more pages. Definately owe this new surge of inspiration to Kara. Thanks. :]