Garnet Heart

Heart on canvas made with acrylic and newspaper, inspired by dark colours and the film 'Interview with the vampire,' which I love to freakin' tears 

This coming week I'll be doing my work experience at the Moon-tree art gallery, so I've been doing a lot of painting recently to get in touch with my creative side a bit more (when I'm not revising my goddam brains out anyway). I've also been reading Keats's poetry to help me sleep (that's when I realised how illiterate I am compared to all these dudes mentioned in the intro) and it inspired me to write a poem, but I don't know if I like it yet, so I might post it later. 

Earlier, me and Nina were watching Deep Blue (I think that's the name of it) and all these ugly-looking toothy fish and extra strange jellyfish reminded us of this song by Katie-Jane Garside which has these weird 'n wonderful creatures in the vid;

Dark angel- Katie-Jane Garside

Gotta love the fairy-light one at the end :)

'I am made of porcelain'

Lo and behold: another embroidered ditty I've finished, all fabric upcycled and a doillie I've picked up at Boscombe Vintage Market. Plus the dress I'm wearing is a vintage number I picked up from Bobo's Emporium on Etsy, that arrived swiftly over the weekend. I had to show it off :) 

This is prolly my most precious embroidery to date. The text is a sample of the poem 'Porcelain' that I started way back in 2005, and finished in 2009.  Below is the poem in its entirety...

Before I give you my bare skin

be tender,

it's fragile and thin

and with the most passionate touch

can shatter.

I am made of porcelain.

Before you drape your arms around me

consider,

I fail beneath weight

and as with fine china

can shatter.

I crack under pressure.

Before you caress my white skin

remember,

don't hold me too passionately

for I am so thin.

My bones are gaunt and ghost-like,

my eyes - translucent as resin.

My frame is that of fine china.

I am made of porcelain.

I want to finish with a song, a precious li'l number from the Red Hot Chili Peppers that I adore.

Porcelain...

all my love,

Nina x

ps Katie wants me to apologise on her behalf for not posting often on the blog and communicating much of her ideas at the mo, because she's doing her GCSEs next year and is sitting exams for the next few weeks, so is busy with her books, the clever lass. But she has some stunning drawings that I might have to stealthily snap from her sketch book to show y'all! ;)

The Thicket Dwellers...

...is available to read here on figment! I've uploaded four chapters so far, but will be adding more frequently, until the entire novel is up. I really hope you have a browse, maybe read the lot! I'd appreciate it heaps if you pressed 'follow' and/or 'heart' and maybe even left a brief comment or review. The more activity on my profile, the more likely the website will advertise it on the home page, therefore reaching more readers. I hope you like it. It's intended for the YA market, but definitely suitable for the adult reader too. It's a darkly told coming-of-age psycho-drama; I've included a comprehensive description on my figment profile, so you get a better understanding of the plot. 

Above is the finished image I've uploaded for the book cover, and below are some images from the photo shoot me n' Katie did on King's Park common near where we live, which was the inspiration for the common ground in the novel. The first image is the final picture I chose, then treated on Photoshop to create the final image. 

Some images from the surrounding woodlands, including the ivy-ridden forest where Rose Harkness encounters Ena during her transformation near the end of the story, and the thicket bush which Rose crawled inside whilst fleeing, and where she met the woman of the woods for the first time... 

Our dog Beau accompanied us, making a nuisance of himself and treading all over our roses!

And we became this strange procession - Myself, Katie and Beau, walking through the common and up the hill onto the cemetery, where we took our offering of roses that we'd used for the photo shoot and placed them on our grandfather's grave. 

Katie sat among the daisies for a while, whilst Beau bounded through the unkempt grasses, disturbing the dead, but when the mozzies came and bit my knees I ushered them both home, and we jumped the fence seeing as we'd been locked in by the grounds-keeper. Then we had dinner and went to zzzzz...

The End

Nina x

Dandelion wishes for Emma

I've been making a cushion for my dear friend Emma, as it's her mum Diana's birthday in June so she's commissioned me to make a present for her. I've never done a dandelion before, I think this one came out really well and am dead pleased :)

Here is the finished product, framed with the flowers in Mum's front garden

When taking the finished cushion over yesterday to Emma, I had a snuggle with her new rescue dog Rascal!

We've had a productive weekend, Katie and I. We've just finished creating a book cover for when I upload my novel onto figment.com, and treated it a li'l on photoshop. It's come out better than I could've hoped for. And I've written a li'l ditty called 'Captive Butterfly' that I have plans, and fabric, for. But that's another post...

Nina x