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 Let's just say that Second Year is kicking my butt.And I lost all of my unpublished photos/videos from 2012 (and some from 2011) in a harddrive failure.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.

Art & Reality T.V. :: Camberwell BA. & Video.

Hello everyone! At college we are starting a new project in conjuction with the Graphic Design students. It's called 'Channel' and basically we are putting together a T.V. channel! It's a pretty exciting idea and I'm looking forward to getting my teeth in it a bit more.

As an excersise, we divided into 'departments' and then teamed up. I was in the Art and Reality T.V. department and we were all set a task to make a quick 1 min film 'pilot' for what kind of show we would have. Here is what we came up with...

It's just little and the text is really messy but I hope you found that a bit comical anyway. :] It was all filmed in college (which I thought you might find interesting too). 
We're reanalysing everything after seeing other people's 1min films. (See here.) Wonder where we will end up!
Here's some of the text. It was handdrawn and pieced together on photoshop. Tried to make it textured so it wasn't just sitting on top of the video but more embedded.

kimxo

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.

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. :]

the end is in sight.

Finished my 'final piece' last night for my Byron project. This is a page from my A4 sketchbook.
I've just got some admin stuff to do- write up an evaluation and label all my work for the assessment. It's not much- but I can taste the end, and I'm so stinkin' tired, i just want to it to be over! haha. Gotta push through, cause I know it'll be worth it.

I can do it. I can do it.
And if you've got deadlines to0- You can do it!
Summer is nearly here.
Can't wait to write out a list of all the things I want to accomplish. Which reminds me- I should share my Easter list- and all the things I completed. [:
See you later. kxo 

Collected Yarn Labels.

Along with the heaps of wool I've been collecting, I've also been saving the labels. [: There are some more on my camberwell blog. I think they look really  beautiful as a collection, and the vintage ones are so well designed. Hope you like them too.

PennyRoyal :: something from a while ago.

Some of my long-term followers might remember this band that I used to take pictures for... PennyRoyal. We did a few fun photoshoots and I designed their single but couldn't share the full design because it was still so new. But seeing as it was in 2008, and they aren't together anylonger, I thought you'd like to see the final designs.I loved working on this project because they gave me a lot of free-reign but they also had a lot of creative ideas. It was a good mix. Thought you'd like to see. [:

My Sketchbook 2011

Hello everyone! So- I uploaded my entire Sketchbook Project to flickr today (and also my Camberwell Blog). You'll want to have a look at flickr for the whole story! I thought I would show you some of my favourites, although, it's kind of hard because there are a lot! I had mum holding the book while I took the photos and playing with my new lense! It does amazing things. Anyway, here are some of my favs: For a lot of these pages, I had done the drawings while out and about and then when I sat down this week to fill it up, I added the colours and the collages and it came together really nicely as a fluid book, but still jumping from one thought to another. The theme was on '...you'd be home by now.' which I thought was really relevant to some personal things that happened in 2010. it's kind of an exploration of living by myself and learning to love being alone and dealing with the loneliness when it comes along. But I'll never see this pretty little book again because it's off to America now! Kind of refreshing, actually- to put all those thoughts down and send them off. [:Which are your favourite pages? [:
kimxo

p.s. hee hee! one of my friends from college, Alice Tye has done this too! Look at this funny picture she drew of me! pretty sure she drew this from a photo we took in Budapest. I love it when friends draw me.<3

There is one sketchbook somewhere between here and brooklyn.

I mailed my 'The Sketchbook Project' sketchbook off today! It's kind of nerve wracking knowing that it's somewhere between here and brooklyn and I'll never see it again unless I go to the Brooklyn Art Library in America. But.... That does mean that all of you USA lovelies out there have a chance to go and see some of my art work up close and in person! For a full list of where The Sketchbook Project 2011 is touring, check out their website! And you can also get involved in one of the Art House Co-op's cool projects. [: Here's my profile in case you're doing it too and want to connect.
I'll be sharing more of my book a bit later on, when I've edited all the photos of it I took this morning. Just a peek! [: