A little preview of preparations for The National Crafts Fair... which starts tomorrow!!!

 I'm sooo tired but really the hard work hasn't even begun yet ... bed early tonight friends :)

Introducing

…the most PUN-TASTIC Christmas cards everrrr!

It's nearly CHRISTMAS!

Get 'em on etsy right HERE.

And also at the National Craft Fair too.

i whaley love long weekends

Today was a shitty day. I got my work torn to shreds (metaphorically). I cut my finger. Cried. Realised I'd ordered the wrong envelopes. Realised that this was going to make my order late to the shops. Thus making me look like a shitty freelancer to work with.

But I'm tired of feeling shitty. Tonight my girl friends are coming over to play this hilarious game, drink wine, and watch the Kardashian wedding... and eat cookies!


I hope you have a lovely weekend. xo


p.s Do you like my whale? He'll be coming to a shelf near you soon, but dressed up like Christmas!

I finally got around to using that rolleiflex a couple of weeks ago. It's beyond uneconomical with film and processing being pretty pricey but I couldn't get over the results. I have NEVER had a first roll turn out so well. It's way more manual than the AE-1 (ie totally manual basically) but I actually found it easier to just aperture/exposure settings without the light metre. I think I rely to heavily on that with the AE-1. It also probably helped that we had some really bright clear days to shoot on (unlike yesterday!)

 

(that's Lauri... he sits beside me in college!)

playing catchup

This is a project we did at the start of the module with Maeve. We did so much work and produced so much I feel exhausted. It was really worthwhile though and so interesting to see that we actually can all be that productive and successful. As a group I think our solutions to the problems we faced got better and better as the week went on. I was certainly much happier with my storyboard and comic (they'll be up soon!) than I was with this project which I did at the very beginning.

Each of us were given a phrase to illustrate, mine was 'waiting on bated breath'.

worksheets

Here's my finished illustration:

It's certainly not as good as it could be. It really doesn't convey the phrase correctly or the meaning of the phrase at all really (the meaning which I didn't actually know when I was given it in the first place!). I found it really challenging to illustrate breath as it's not usually something we see. A few people in the class could see it was breath but didn't get the bated thing.

 I really wanted to do my final storyboards on my laptop. But I just don't think my skillz cut it. It took me like two hours to finish that top bit and my eyes are sooore (on a side note I got them tested today and I need glasses! eek). Back to the pen and paper it is... oh well. 

On a happier note I passed my theory test. Whoo!

storyboards

 

Rough draft of a storyboard for college. (It's that Meteor ad that's on tv at the mo)

I can't decide if I need a couple more shots or not... I was thinking maybe one at the end with all the info on it? Like the logo and the deal that's being advertised? I think I'll try it and see.

P.S If you've got any feedback or anything important I need to consider Maeve could you maybe leave it below in the comments or shoot me a quick email (meldonc@gmail.com). Thanks for letting me submit it on the blog because I can't be there today!

superwoman

Visual Rhetoric homework on the Nude Through the Centuries.

Can you figure out which body part is by who?

(there's four in total!)

tweet tweet

Remember this?

Well I made an owl baby to go along with it. Would you like to see? 

(And one of my Owl Cards too of course!)

preview.

something i'm working on.

a digital camera would be nice. photobooth isn't really a viable means of documenting.

lily

 

I pretty much have the coolest dog in the world.

 

she's hilarious.

I love her.

Autumn

The weather is starting to turn. Soon all the leaves will be brown, the wind will be even colder and one pair of tights will feel like bare skin. I love the autumn but it feels too soon. Last week the sun shone, albeit rather briefly, for a day or two. Here's what we captured in between the showers:

 

click to flickr

p.s Richard took the first and last photo :)

orange roses

birthday flowers from my orange loving boyfriend. they're beauts.

Update: just got my photos printed, check out the real things below

I made some little owls.

I'm going to open an Etsy shop soon I think... to sell the cards. 

Not the owls. God no, who'd want to buy my sewing skills? I'm no Maria. 

But maybe if somebody bought lots of cards they could get an owl too? 

Maybe. I don't know. That depends if anyone actually wants to buy them. Ha!

p.s how cool is the mini bicycle? we bought it for my dad years ago, I love it!

reasons for not blogging:1

too busy making owls get married.

(it's a hard life I lead)

home

It's so nice to be home. It's almost 2pm and I'm still in my pyjamas (stupidly, cause they're shorts and it's c-c-c-cold here) watching old episodes of Oprah and episodes of One Born Every Minute US that I missed when I was away. My films from the trip are sitting at the bottom of my boyfriend's carry-on bag- which I presume hasn't been emptied yet! I'm going to drop them in later. I love getting photos back... I've forgotten what most of them are of so it's always a nice surprise when the memories come flooding back!

In the meantime here's some scans of my holiday doodles... (the town was tiny, literally nothing to do so now my notebook is almost finished!) 

     claire snoozing/don't those corkscrew bottle openers look like parrots? no? oh, ok.. just me then.

 the boys hair 'styles'/ pool time

 we baked! / the most amazing leather satchel that smells like a farm and only cost 40 euro!

claire snoozin' again

I didn't realise those bits of paper were stuck on my scanner when I saved the images... boo. 

It's always nice to return home after a holiday. Sleeping in my own bed last night was lovely. Although I think my body still thinks it's in Teulada... I had to take off my jeans and change into a skirt because I was over heating! 

What are all your plans for this summer? Plenty of adventures I hope!

P.S

This post took me over an hour to write. Halfway through scanning I realised that the dog barking in the distance was mine! She escaped through the hedge and I finally found her twenty minutes later in a neighbour's garden. Silly dawg.

one more sleep

I'm going on holidays in 8 hours and 38 minutes... which makes me very

see you all in two weeks.

(there's no internet..whoopee!)

.

I did my first freelance job a couple of weeks ago. It was both exciting and nerve-wracking, which only intensified as I knew the client well and it's always difficult to discuss money, especially if you know them. But I just got over it and kept reminding myself that I was doing a job and that I had to be professional. geeeez.
The job was to design an invitation to the retirement party of an English teacher... and I have to admit the resulting piece has been my favourite owly design so far. (on a side note I can do more than owls... serrrriously I promise!)

I've included some pictures of the finished design and notebook pages of the 'process', if you'd like to see.

 

sorry about all the blurry bits but ya know... internet freaks and all that.

p.s the quote is from Shakespeare, in case ya didn't know!

there'll be sun sun sun

 

I'm going on holidays on Wednesday. 

I am SO excited!

Get thee to SWALK!

These, and more, available in Swalk, Royal Hibernian Way.  Just off Grafton Street folks. 

Go!

Buy!