london trip 2015

Sightseeing

Sometimes u just gotta embrace your inner annoying tourist

I just got back yesterday from a 5 day holiday to the capital - as I watch the torrential rain I'm already missing the ridiculous heat we experienced this week! As you can see from the unbelievably blue sky in my photos, we couldn't have picked a better time to visit London, with temperatures rising up to 34 degrees. This was a real shock to my little Scottish brain that thinks 19 degrees is positively tropical, but I absolutely loved it. Although seeing Westminster and Buckingham Palace was pretty astounding, one of my favourite destinations to visit was King's Cross Station. As someone who is still a massive Harry Potter fan it has always been a dream of mine to see the real platform 9 & 3/4 - it was an emotional and weirdly nostalgic moment for me.

Warner Bros Studio Tour

Okay so after visiting King's Cross and the Millennium Bridge, my inner HP fan was pretty happy. My contentedness level went into OVERDRIVE here. At the start of tour, they play a short video in a cinema about the origin of Harry Potter and the studio tour. I started crying during this because I was so emotional about seeing clips from the films on the big screen again, which I think sets the tone for my day pretty well. It was so surreal and wonderful walking through these places that I had pictured whilst reading the books, then witnessed them being brought to life in the movies. It was incredible how much detail was put into each individual set, costume and prop. A great example of this was the graphic design display, which showed all the newspapers, books and letters made for the films. It included things that didn't even make the final cut, my favourite being the letter Harry finds in Deathly Hallows, written to Sirius from Lily, thanking him for Harry's birthday present. This was a little moment I loved in the book, and it made me so happy to know that efforts were made to include it. (Yes there were more tears.) 

My favourite part of the whole tour was seeing Hogwarts castle. I started reading the books when I was around 6 years old, and since then it has always been a place of sanctuary and comfort to me, almost like a second home. They were also playing Hogwart's Hymn from Goblet of Fire, which is one of my favourite pieces. This was probably one of the happiest moments of my life so far (No, I don't care how sad that is.)

when u cant smile big enough to show how happy you are

Museums

I also visited the Victoria and Albert Museum, which included a huge exhibition about the evolution of popular British clothing and fashion. Although I'm no expert, I'm really interested in fashion and style, so this was a lot of fun. It was cool to see how modern decades had actually been inspired by clothes designed centuries ago. 

We also went to the National Gallery, which was one of the highlights of my whole holiday. I am very big on Impressionism and post-Impressionism, so was absolutely ecstatic to be able to see so many renowned pieces of work by artists I love and admire. Some of my favourites were Monet, Degas and Seurat - although it wasn't his famous Grande Jatte, I still felt like I was Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And Van Gogh gets a special mention, because he is my ultimate favourite. Yes, I know I'm cliche.  

Wicked

This is the last thing I'm going to talk about, promise! Wicked has been one of my favourite musicals for a while now - the big catch being that I've never actually seen it live on stage. The original Broadway recording is one of my most-listened-to albums, I've watched countless clips of performances on Youtube, and was already well acquainted with the story. It was fantastic to finally see it in the theatre. It made me laugh and gave me goosebumps and made me cry multiple times. I think I ascended into heaven after Defying Gravity. Even if you're not typically a musical theatre fan, I advise you to go see Wicked if you have the chance!!!

PS. Sorry this post was so long - I just wanted to gush for a while about how much fun I had in London. I can't wait to go back! Be back soon xxx

my artwork

Long time no see!! I've been super busy lately - although its been really occupying, one of my favourite things this year has been completing my Advanced higher Art folio. I was given a lot of freedom with my project and it was great to explore different areas of portraiture. I decided to focus on a theme of 'Disturbed Minds', hence the angsty portraits you will see below. I took inspiration from several artists from Vincent Van Gogh to Cara Thayer & Louie Van Patten who I found on tumblr! I'm really proud of my finished work so I thought I would share my process with you all.

First I did some simple sketches and poses, then moved into some more detailed monochromatic studies. I experimented with both white and black paper to try and test myself with tonal control - drawing on black paper is so time consuming and takes so much concentration but I think the ultimate effect is really cool! Inspired by Cara and Louie I then moved into colour and dramatic close ups, using a mix of acrylic paints and coloured pencils.

I can't believe I used to be scared of paints...I <33 acrylics

This is my final piece inspired by Cara and Louie. It's the biggest painting I've ever completed, using A1 paper. I wanted to experiment using really intense colours to create a painting that was both realistic but still expressive. It's one of my favourite pieces of work! I wish I timed how long it took me so I could complain about it, but this piece was a work in progress for so many weeks there was no way in hell I could have kept track. This portrait was chosen to be displayed in our local museum for a showcase - it was so cool to see my own work hanging up in public - although it felt kind of weird, like that one time my selfie came up on the board in English class a couple of years ago, except this time it was intentional..

This marks a weird transitional stage where I was really interested in line and had way too much fun creating these squiggly portraits (I wish I was Nikos Gyftakis) This style naturally led me on to explore Edvard Munch, king of morbidity. It resulted in more stylistic portraits which was something I had never really dared to do before!!

Basically Munch was really into the theme of death, so I took a really literal approach and photoshopped skulls on to my face, then created undead Kirsty. It was so fun. In my large final pieces I decided to go crazy expressive which was pretty unheard of for me, and it felt pretty great to let loose and paint with no guidlines or preliminary drawing! LIFE ON THE WILD SIDE

Finally I decided to go for a more classic approach and took inspiration from my main man Vincent Van Gogh (I know I'm totally cliche.) His paintings were characterised by their symbolic use of colour and visible brushstrokes creating swirling patterns. I tried to emulate this, except I used oil pastels because I'm an amateur (and who really has time to use oil paints???)

This brings us to the end of this year's artwork! Even though I'm going to study English at uni I really want to keep going with my artwork because it's been a big part of my life and something that I can always return to if I'm stressed or fed up. I'm really proud of my work this year and just wanted to share it all! I hope you enjoyed it. Now my exams are over I'll hopefully be posting more on here too!