Cheeeeesecake!

There has been a bit of a bake-off going on at my work recently. Nothing official, but I recently took some homemade chocolate-coated chocolate-chip cookie dough balls to work. I don't mind saying, they were pretty darn tasty. But then one of the girls brought in M&M blondies, then Cadbury Fudge muffins and /then/ Oreo cookie cheesecake. Dear me, that last one was to die for. She made a pretty mean Crunchie one late last year too. I felt I had to up my game a little bit so I tried my own hand at making a cheesecake. I took the day off work and spent the afternoon baking with my cousin. It was lovely and nice and relaxing because cheesecake is surprisingly very simple to make! I chose to make a Malteser cheesecake because everyone loves Maltesers, right? Right. They're small round pieces of delicious malt chocolatey goodness.

It was very good. Not as good as the Oreo, but certainly not bad for a first attempt! My manager is going to be making a Creme Egg cheesecake over the weekend and she'll be bringing it in work on Monday to share with us all. I am far too eager to try it! Of course, all of this is not very good for my fitness and kind-of-dieting routine. Due to various reasons I haven't been able to do much exercise so far this week. Drama and a poorly pooch has meant trips to the vets instead of the gym, and I've been feeling a little off recently which isn't helping. I've had nausea for a fair few days now, but it's passing and my appetite is returning. I've eaten quite a lot today, in fact, and I have been doing little bits of the 'fast abs' regime in my bedroom. I'm sure it will be fine and hopefully everything will be back to normal as of next week! Maybe.

Doodles and Dragons

Here is a bad photo of my Manchester Museum doodles from last weekend:

And here is an even worse photo of my latest tattoo. It's still a WIP but will hopefully be finished by the end of this week :) I'll be adding some darker blues, purple and orange/yellow into the mix

The tattoo was done by a chap called Matthew at Death Star Tattoo Studios in Droylsden, the town one over from my own. He's a little unreliable when it comes to keeping appointments but he is a damn good artist, so I still go back. He did the fantastical book owl tattoo on my leg:

And finally, here is another design I'm thinking of maybe getting done on my foot?

It's a small momento to my dog, Lucky, who died in December 2012. Plus, a lucky four-leaf clover seems pretty fitting for someone who has the online nickname 'Lucky'.

I still have at least another two tattoos planned as well. I'm going to end up overdoing it, I think!

Artwork WIP and Life

I've had a half-decent day of the creative variety today so I figured I would share with you all what I'm currently working on and what I've been up to.

For those of you who don't know me, I work full-time as a sales administrator in a small specialist technical services company. That's 45 hours per week of mind-numbing boredom. Don't get me wrong, as jobs go this one is okay and I really enjoy the company of the people I work with. It's just not very challenging. At all.

Outside of work I try hard to do something a little more stimulating. I go to the gym four times a week and see my friends as often as I can. I adore reading and will quite often get home from work and sit quietly in my room with my book until bedtime some four hours later. Every now and then I get inspired to draw or paint or doodle, and once I start something I try my hardest to finish it. Those days don't happen so often anymore. Back when I was in London I found a lot more time to indulge my many hobbies, including sewing, claycraft and beading. I've pretty much given up on all of those now, but drawing and painting still happens!

This is my current WIP. I'm having lots of fun with him! I currently have a problem with the painting and the layout that I haven't yet figured out how to resolve, so it's currently stuck in limbo while I decide what to do. It will hopefully match the wolf picture I did for my Secret Santa gift :)

I have some doodles to post up later too, I did some sketching at the Manchester Museum earlier today :)

Righty, I am off to bed to read, when did it get so late?

Good night!

Sherlock and Tattoos

Have some Sherlock doodles drawn in anticipation of the latest series. I've watched all three episodes at least twice over now x_x DVD is on my pre-order list... Yup. I could talk for hours about it but I don't want to bore anyone or give anything away to those of you who may not have seen it (who are you, crazy people?!) but please give me shout if you want to chat about it!

This next one is an older drawing that followed series 2 (so it's at least a year old). It's not as good as I remember it being, but it's still Sherlock. I can definitely see some improvement in my attempts at people-drawing, which is good :) The chin and hair are all wrong in this drawing, blech.

On a non-Sherlock related note, I'm hopefully getting a new tattoo in the next couple of weeks! I already have my design sorted and I will be visiting the tattoo studio on Saturday for a price and to book the first session. Yes, I reckon it will take a good few hours to do. So excited! I'll post the design up when I'm certain it's going to happen!

Dragon Step-by-Step

A small step-by-step of my dragon painting. I'm not sure it gives much insight into my process but I quite like the development with this one ^^ Sorry for the crappy photos - I can't wait to get a phone with a decent camera on it!

Welcome!

Okay. So, welcome to my blog :) I've kind of jumped on the bandwagon with my crafty friends and created this in an attempt to fuel my imagination and be inspired to get something done. Luckily I have a little cousin on the way and I have a rather large project I want to get finished before she arrives in April. Here's hoping that documenting my progress will keep me motivated ^^ So to start things off, I'm just going to post a few pieces I'm particularly fond of from 2013, I hope you like them!

My latest painting using ink and gouache :)

A photograph of Chester Cathedral taken back in May when my camera was new. I used a Canon 550D with a Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II Lens.

My Secret Santa gift for a dear friend. A4 Ink and gouache.

Made as part of an ArtCrossing gift. ArtCrossing is a great group on DeviantArt where you're assigned a profile and create a gift based on the information given. Once they have received your gift, a different person somewhere in the world does the same for you :)

Dragon necklace commission. Made with Premo Sculpey polymer clay and many beads

Prismacolor coloured pencils and white gel pen on brown paper.

My latest tattoo! It's my own design but the tattoo itself was done by the owner of Death Star Tattoo Studios in Droylsden.

Photographs taken at ZSL London Zoo and Paradise Wildlife Park respectively