Summer reading.

Summer holidays are the best time to get some reading done. I've recently finished D.H Lawrence's 'The Virgin and the Gipsy' which was brilliant. Lawrence has an expert way of expressing underlying thoughts and feelings common to all human beings without being too general. I've now begun Terry Pratchett's 'Hogfather' as I watched the tv-movie adaption last week. I'm only 20 pages or so in but again- brilliant.
But for some bedtime lazy reading, I'm going with the new issue of 'Country Style', so many pretty Christmas themes.

A small sketch I did by the creek in Bright today.

Bright

The glorious view from our cabin verandah. We can hear the creek rushing by as we fall asleep. It's been far too long since I've been here.

Holiday

Quick sketch of Simon Amstell while on holiday in Bright. Incredibly beautiful.
My feet are in the creek, I have a copy of Dumbo Feather (from which I saw the photograph of Amstell), and my gorgeous family with me. I also have some delicious 'James Squire' apple cider. Everything would be perfect if I had just remembered my eraser.

Brave

I recently bought Disney/Pixar's film 'Brave' on DVD. I adored it when I saw it at the cinema and I'm over the moon to finally own it myself. Merida is Pixar's first princess, and she's absolutely gorgeous. The red, bouncing hair, brilliant Scottish accent, and bubbling, passionate personality, are all traits that just make her one of the most admirable cartoon princesses marketed in film. Another quality of the film that I loved was the fact that it wasn't a love story. Merida doesn't need or even want to entertain the idea of marriage at her young age and doesn't need a 'love interest' to turn her life around- she does so herself. Instead, it focuses on the fragile relationship between a Mother and daughter which I found to be painstakingly touching and accurate. It really added a surprising depth the film.                                                                                        

Stevie Nicks

Got this dvd/cd package of the best PF Stevie Nicks the other day on sale. Brilliant. Summer record.

Cooking

I recently came across Mary McCartney's 'Food. Vegetarian home cooking' book and fell in love. On a visit to a local book shop I saw it in passing on sale for $10 so snatched it up without giving it too much of a look (I am always quick to get my hands on any kind of vegetarian recipes that might have some merit). When I arrived home and took the time to flick through the pages in more depth I found the recipes to be exactly the kind of food I love to eat. Ever since I became a vegetarian two years ago, I've had trouble feeling motivated to cook myself delicious meals, but this book has changed that. I am feeling excited about trying out all these meals and (even more so), tasting them. I'm having a friend over for lunch tomorrow and hope to try one of them out. I'm tossing up over the 'Easy-Peasy soup', and the 'Halloumi and roasted red pepper salad'. Decisions, decisions!

I really do enjoy getting excited over things.

The perks

(Photograph from http://weheartit.com/entry/44255552/via/Love_Images_Coffee )

I began Stephen Chbosky's 'The Perks of being a Wallflower' yesterday and stayed up all night reading it. I finished it today. It's been on my bookshelf for four months and I only picked it up yesterday because the film will be out soon and I didn't want to see it without reading the book. I didn't expect it to affect me the way it has, of course I'd heard that it was a good book but I honestly didn't expect too much from it as I've had a sort of disappointing run with books lately. It pulled me in though. I felt like I was 17 again, and I've never loved being an age more than I loved being 17. Some parts felt invigorating, where others made me feel sad not only for the characters, but for the way I've lived my life. I'm afraid that I'm a little bit of a wallflower. Sticking to the edges, choosing to be empathetic so as not to do anything that may put somebody else out. You know that scene in 'Grease' where they're at the dance and there's that one shot of all the girls sitting on the sidelines looking sad? Then that one girl gets asked to dance and she floats away, leaving her comrades behind- I am one of those girls. Or I was. I like to observe, and I want to 'participate' in life like nothing else in the world and I do, at times. But I feel like it isn't quite enough. 

I related to Charlie increasingly throughout the book. It scared me somewhat. But it did something else for me. As I read the book in the bath last night, I took a moment to look up at the ceiling and ponder on what I'd just read. The shifting light reflection of the water on the ceiling was hypnotic and I could hear the sounds of shouts over loud music as my neighbour had a party. I haven't been to parties in a long time. It made me sad. Perhaps I am too complacent in my shyness.
But that isn't something I can't fix. I will fix it, as much I feel i need to. I will do the things that i want to and worry about problems when they arise. 

Motivation

Drawing and painting are things I haven't been doing nearly as much in the last two years. Studying and working has been eating away at my time and I haven't been doing what I love my most. Since finishing my semester I've begun working on my sketches again and it's been brilliant. 

My summer girl (above here) is one of my favourites. I actually drew her as part of my year.12 folio and every time I see her she reminds me of the hot days and numerous hours I spent in the art room, working on my folio, listening to Stephen Fry podgrams, and giggling with friends. 

Expression is something I really enjoy working on. It's difficult to achieve (for me) and so when I get it right, I get pretty excited. 

Sketches

Cassie Ainsworth from 'Skins' generation 1 is one of my favourite characters. I adore drawing her and this is one of my earlier sketches of her. Her big teeth, wispy hair, mismatched clothes and eerie eyes are brilliantly fun to draw.

The Magic of Carrie Hope Fletcher

A lovely youtuber/musician that I am a rather big fan of is one, Carrie Hope Fletcher. She has begun quite a beautiful campaign titled, 'things I'll never say'. It's a brilliant idea where people can send in anonymous confessions of things they'll never say to someone they care about, then Miss Fletcher draws a gorgeous illustration to go with it. This one is my favourite:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ItsWayPastMyBedTime

http://carriehopefletcher.com/

Hobbiton.

I went on a trip to New Zealand recently and visited the gorgeous 'Hobbiton' where the 'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' movies were filmed. It was incredibly beautiful and this is a picture of Bag End. To book tickets or read about the tour, you can go here: http://www.hobbitontours.com/

The sights are breathtaking, and you feel yourself enter into the incredible fantastical world that you experience in the books and films. If you ever have a chance to visit this place, I suggest you most definitely take it.

(The party tree)

Wrote a guest post for my lovely friend, Shannon's blog. All about the lovely Alice.

http://freedomtights.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/monday-guest-post-by-shannon-donovan/

Hermione

This is a painting/ drawing of what I imagine Hermione Granger to look like. She's a character I admire greatly and has always held a special place in my heart.

Drawing again.

I like to draw other people's characters in the way I interpret them, it helps me clarify my own.

Articles

I've written a few articles on weekend notes if you'd like to read.

http://www.weekendnotes.com/profile/131346/

Train Station

My marshmallows melt, oozing into my coffee.

Coffee? Don’t you mean hot chocolate?

No, coffee. If I’d meant hot chocolate I’d have said ‘hotcho’.

There aren’t stars in my eyes, just specks of dust. Realistic, irritating, infuriating specks of dust that are incredibly real.

The sparkle walked out a year or two ago; we weren’t seeing eye-to-eye.

The man across the tracks reads the paper and has the forehead of a teacher I once learnt from. English, British he was, from Yorkshire.

I listen to a girl with confidence and faith and motivation sing through my headphones, allowing her qualities to take me over (hopefully) and to add happiness to my life.

Loose t-shirt walks past; she has a Tim Minchin canvas bag hanging from one shoulder while she the other is used to hold her violin case.

I wonder vaguely whether she’s a musical genius and I’ve just missed an opportunity to speak with such a being.

There’s a young woman in red sitting by the man across the tracks now, on the same bench-seat.

The lit-up sign says the train is three minutes from arriving. I stand up and walk to the end of the platform in preparation. It arrives and I board.

I sit down across from a boy (man? He looks more like a boy) who is listening to his iPod and staring at me incredibly uncomfortably.

Avoiding eye contact is the only way I can think of to let him know his attention is unwanted.

There is a man sitting a few seats down from me who looks almost exactly like a boy I used to have a dancing class with. He’d worn long black coats and boots- he would have frightened me if I hadn’t seen how sweet he was to everyone.

He may have been Spanish or something similar, ‘Lorenzo’. Intriguing.

He was kind to me even though I barely spoke a word to anyone at that time in life, stifled by self-conscious shyness. I always appreciated the people whom didn’t dismiss me because of how shy I was or how little I found myself able to interact.

The man on the train though, isn’t him. He doesn’t have as soft a face and he’s nowhere near as tall.

Sometimes I write in large capitals ‘I HATE PEOPLE READING OVER MY SHOULDER’ when I’m writing on the train because I’m very aware of others and paranoid of their reading what I write. Probably a self-obsessed un-justified paranoia but what can you do? I guess my ego is just that big.

Writing exercises

My tutor has said to be me that creating odd scenarios for your character then writing about what they would do or what they would think. I've found this exercise extremely helpful as it's brought up many new things about my character that I hadn't thought about before, especially personality traits. It's very good for character development, even if you don't end up using the specific piece in your finished work.

This is an example of such an exercise I tried where I wrote a scene in which my protagonist was blind:

I think I am sitting on carpet, it is soft and fluffy, though for all I know it could be the fir of a dead animal. I don’t really believe that though because I can smell a strong scent of detergent in the air surrounding me and if my sense of smell can pick that up, then I’m sure the smell of a rotting corpse would be easy enough to spot.

I open my eyes, and it is dark. I blink them shut then open again but nothing. My breath is vacuumed out of my lungs and my head is dizzy. I realise my brain must be shutting down from lack of oxygen as I begin to feel drowsy and I take control and inhale a sizeable gulp of air.

The smell of detergent seems to be strengthening and creating an ill feeling in my stomach. I feel suddenly terrified of everything, I have no idea what or who I am sharing a room with, if anything.

There is a creak in what sounds like the room next to this one – it is a threat.

There is a slight buzzing hum coming from a few metres away from me – it is a bomb.

Every sound I hear sounds threatening.

Every scent I smell I am suspicious of being gas.

I realise very suddenly that I have completely neglected my other senses my entire life and have relied far too heavily on my sight.

I am disoriented and confused and I have no control over what is to happen to me. If someone were to walk into the room now and attack me, all I could do is flail and scream and maybe kick them a few times before they got the better of my loss of sight, and defeated me. 

I found, a long time ago, that drawing/sketching/painting really helps my imagination warm up and let loose which prepares it well for writing. I think most creative processes would make a good warm up before writing.

Rambles

The sun rises as it usually does, why does it do that? Why does light ‘shine’?

There is sky that is clear- half bright, half dark.

The girl is in a daze; a flower is wound in her hair, an accident.

Country singing girl-next-door sings words of hope into her mind.

Life is for the living, the forgiving? Hopefully.

Crazy, crazy, girls do miss you. She’d like to be missed.

The world goes round and round, she won’t let their absence bring her down though.

She’s only crazy sometimes, like when the photograph of theirs sits in her wallet.

A bucket of coffee, black so that she can consume her portion of bitterness through her taste buds and  coffee beans rather than her mind and the sad, weathered strangers-or not so strangers.

The flowers fall into the bucket and she stirs,

Swirl, swirl, twirl then settle.

The purple of the petals releases syrup into the brown concoction as they melt into their new burning home.

Green, purple, yellow, swirl, swirl, swirl. 

Round and round again, the girl next door is still playing on the music machine that is her head.

White dresses set for a funeral dance around her head. Funeral? Wait, that’s not quite right.

In her head it seems quite right but her mind knows that it isn’t.

She understands, but she can’t articulate. 

Book reading list

I've decided to keep track of all the books I read this year. I'm posting it here in the hope that it will motivate me to add to it at a more rapid rate.

-Disgrace by J.M Coetzee
-In the Penal colony by Franz Kafka
-The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
-Catching Fire          '                               '
-Mockingjay             '                              '
-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
-The Fault in our Stars by John Green
-You'll be sorry when I'm dead by Marieke Hardy
-Daisy Miller by Henry James

Drastic liberation.

A happy thought: they’re all alive and no one has been hurt and everyone is okay and they all love me again. Fly, fly, and fly.

Climb and climb, up the railing. Close your eyes and spread your arms broad.

Think a happy thought, it’s all okay again, all back to normal, it never happened.

Now take a step, and fly, not jump; fly.

An odd sound echoes through the centre and- it catches my attention because it seems to be moving at an incredibly quick rate; faster than anyone could run, not a screaming but more a sort of outlet of sound, of voice.

The dark figure drops past my eye level and the bone-crunching sound of their landing breaks through my entire being and leaves me shaking- eyes wide open.

A crowd of people are gathering around the edge of the level in the centre, the shop is significantly empty, as nearly everyone seems to be drawn to the rest of the crowd. There are shouts and screams and cries, the atmosphere of panic creeping in on me, emanating from the crowd. ‘She’s dead’ I hear yelled out.

I’m on the bottom floor, I saw her by the escalators not too long ago, she couldn’t have gotten too far. I search around the shops, making my way to the centre and-wait. What the hell is going on? There’s a crowd of people, as though the entire population of the shopping centre have banded together in this one place and…oh god, a body…blood….

That can’t be her blue silk scarf…

Conscious consciousness.

If consciousness and unconsciousness are so easy to slip in and out of, then how are we ever to know, truthfully, which is which? Dreams sometimes feel so vivid and real, it's difficult to comprehend that they weren't, in fact, reality.
Although, if this is the case, how are we to know that the dream is truly a dream and not reality?

I've been reading 'Alice's adventures in Wonderland' and it has triggered some thoughts. If a writer constructs a scene so that when a character enters a room and instantly 'knows' something they couldn't have possibly known from simply looking, (the scene in which this thought occurred to me being when Alice enters the room full of doors and knows before trying to open them, that they are all locked.)
This, without making it too explicit so as to cause obviousness or a jolting break in the otherwise melodious flow of the writing, provides the reader with the idea of a dream sequence- perhaps without their even realising it.

Wonderland

Cherry blossoms hung like suspended pink snow flakes upon the thin silhouettes of tree branches- the willowy trees lining the path. There were bright red and white spotted toadstools nestled amongst the thick, lush, grass- dew drops sparkling at the tip of each blade. Everything seemed to shine; every flower, blossom, and raindrop emanating a certain safe warmth that encapsulated its every observer. There was most definitely a kind of magic in the air of this place; it was familiar in all its unfamiliarity. It was a mystery, and it was enthralling. 

Artistic process

The black ink lightly makes contact with, then bleeds into the absorbent paper in one swift stroke across the page. The tightly bound, thin bristles of the paintbrush allow the quick, guiding wrist movements of the artist to produce lines and swirls; the products of their imagination. Eyes draw closed in concentration, as the artist’s skilled familiarity with the page takes over and creates.