This and That

As the titles goes. This is just a post to...well post some odd bits that don't make for a good post by themselves.

 

I haven't actually gone out with the combination of leopard print leggings and my imitation tartan creepers yet but I will brave it eventually. I live in a rather tracksuit infested market town and sometimes it's best not to stand out too much...I tend to be more adventurous in style when I know I will not be by myself or am going out of town. With the amount of idiots found in market towns it's usually safer that way as I don't really like being harrassed by people in groups...

My mum did some flower arranging at the W.I. The one on the left is hers and the other is someone who let her take theirs? Or she stole it...

This is my dwarf rabbit, Izzy. Don't let her cute looks fool you, she's damn vicious when it comes to food!

 

instagram.com/guyinabunnysuit

I keep trying to get in to using instagram but my phones camera is pretty bad. I also forget to take my phone out a lot, which generally makes it quite pointless.

 I forgot to add this to my art post but here is a photo of my mum with a drawing I did of my Grandad from his younger years. I never got to meet my Grandad but my brother adored him so I drew this for his birthday. It's hanging in his house now, which I am really happy about. I was kind of worried it might get tucked away somewhere!

Re Wearing Clothes

This was just something I threw on when I got home. I tend to wear skinny jeans and plaid flannel shirts to college. It's the easiest type of outfit to wear when dealing with various art materials but it doesn't half look like I own a hell of a lot of plaid flannel shirts. I think I own about 6? They are all in different colours...

 

Top - hand printed at my colleges taster day

Shorts - from a charity shop

Cardigan - Tescos

Leggings - Primark

                                                            Hat - Mum knitted it for me

I have a habit of putting clothes I haven't really worn properly to the side to be worn again, hence why the shorts and shirt have featured twice. I kept waking up late and barely spent that much time in the clothes.

And the Kpop song I am addicting to listening to right now. No idea what they're saying but I just love the bubbly happy vibe this tune and video give off haha. Bang Yong Guk is also beautiful to look at in this.
The 'This is you' written on the card also makes me laugh every time. I mean, I have absolutely no understanding of the Korean language so I can't really talk so to speak but I really love (in an affectionate way more than pointing and laughing) the Koreans (and Japaneses) take on English.

The Sun Shone So I Wore All Black

It was a hot day when I threw this outfit together. When It got colder I put on my cardigan. Seriously, trust me to put on all black when it's hot out...

 

Collared Shirt from Bank

Braces from Primark

Shorts from Primark

Socks from H&M

 Sexy Cardigan from Topshop

Headband from Miss Selfridge

Whenever I try to blog, I always write in this simplistic, overly cheerful tone that I always feel doesn't  sound like me translated in to type. When I think about how I actually speak, it's an absurd mix and match of colloquial English and overly formal phrasing. My family is from Yorkshire, Scotland and Ireland and I've come to realise through my classmates that I use phrases and words that are not considered 'southern English' (though to be honest, we're not in the South either, being in East Anglia and all...) and people have asked me where I'm from or even questioned the validity of my phrasing. I also watch a lot of documentaries, period dramas and read a lot and I am not kidding when I say I am a bloody parrot. Words just stick in my mind and I end up using them. A English teacher was thoroughly amused by something I said the other day, telling me that I sounded like I'd just hopped out of the 1930's. To add to it, I told him I was going to 'retire' for the day and go home. I can't help it, I am either so muddled my words aren't even in the correct grammatical order for English (that's what I get for listening to all those foreign music videos) or I the manner in which I speak is a mess of the modern and historical, like a Southern accented, Yorkshire pronouncing (thanks mum, forever being corrected on 'grass' and 'bath'), lass who can't quite make up her mind.

Inspirations

Usually I see this types of posts as kind of pointless but I imagined they were sort of fun for the poster to think about. So here I am, doing one myself. Though what I am about to post are people or styles I like rather than inspirations I actually try to emulate. I'm more of a frankenstein of a less flamboyant form of these styles (in my mind) of these people whose styles I adore most. Most you will have defintely heard of them if you are interested in Japanese or even Korean popular culture.

All images can be found on google by typing in the persons name, although all of these have been shamelessly uploaded from a folder on my laptop... I feel quite guilty not knowing where I saved these from now, it's usually a mix of tumblr and google.

 

Seto Ayumi 

(Photo from tumblr but probably originated from her blog, http://ameblo.jp/asbs-setoayumi/)

Definitely my favourite Japanese magazine model. Although I don't always like what she's wearing, she never fails to be both quirky and cute, which is exactly what I adore about her! 

Kimura U

 (photo from her blog http://ameblo.jp/kimura-u/ )

Another of my favourite magazine models. Just looking at her makes me want to throw on pastel colours and tie my short hair in to bunches. I simply adore her extreme cuteness. I actually drew this photo of her and tagged her in a tweet, back when I had twitter, to which she re tweeted it! I had such a fan girl moment.

Akira 

(Image from tumblr. Does she have a blog?)

Sometimes I like what Akira is wearing, sometimes I don't. But generally, I really like her androgynous style with a 'punk' aesthetic. She always looks cool. I had a big thing for androgynous fashion when I had short hair so for a while she was a favourite alongside the style of GD.

G Dragon 

(Image from google, from another blog so I am not sure of the origin.)

He was bound to come up eventually. When I first heard of Big Bang or Kpop in general, it was during the release of their song 'Monster'. I can't remember if GD was still sporting the 'seaweed' hair style but that was the era in which I liked his style and Big Bangs performance outfits the most. I also liked TOP's blue hair, which was what made me google them in the first place. Now a day's I kind of prefer Taeyangs personal style, which is not something I ever thought I'd say...

Sayoko Ozaki 

(From tumblr. Perhaps a magazine scan?)

My favourite Gyaru magazine model. She always looks so effortlessly sexy. Big girl crush.

 Ikeda Hirari

(Photo from  http://i-donline.com/2013/01/ambush-the-world/)

If you're interested in Japanese street fashion, you can't look anywhere without seeing her crop up (tumblr included) and rightly so, her clothes, her make up, her constantly changing hair style and colour, she's visually incredible!  I think I'm actually the same age as her or maybe a few months older and I'm just in awe of the way in which she goes about the constant transformations. I wish I was as dareing with fashion, though I daresay perhaps the setting of where I live wouldn't be the best place to go about with such bold looks.

Juria Nakagawa

(Image from tokyofashion.com)

Probably tumblrs No.1 'IT' girl, as well as being a Harajuku style icon alongside Ikeda Hirari.
I like her style now but I have to admit my favourite style era of hers was from last summer, where she mixed sexy and cute, creating what Tokyofashion could only dub Juria-kei. I simply adored 'Juria-kei'!

Alisa Ueno

(Image from her tumblr,  http://alisaueno.tumblr.com/)

Her style is just so undoubtedly cool and edgy.

Block B

 Their Music Video outfits, specifically NILLILI MAMBO and NalinA.

(Image from http://unitedkpop.com)

Or should I say their music video styelists choice in style? I don't pay much attention to their 'off time/airport' photos but I do love their sort of 'hip hop meets punk' style that they carry in the aforementioned music videos. Zico's outfits are usually my favourite.

The Twins Miho and Maho
(Image from http://fy-fruits.tumblr.com)

These girls always look so amazing. There style is so edgy and eye catching and what's better, they don't just stick to one type of look, sometimes they wear a softer looking style with colour whilst style retaining an edge that just makes them so cool.

Hyper Japan OCT Outfit & Bleaching My Fringe.

This was my outfit for Hyper Japan back in October. The air was chilly but it wasn't too bad so I had decided to wear a skirt. It's ironic because I was in skinny jeans all summer, despite the random bursts of hot weather inbetween the showers we had.

 

One with a glare...

 

And another with a smile!

 

As I usually ask my mum to take quick photos on our way out for me (probably not the best time) she said for me to take one of her too. She's so cute!

 Not the most flattering photo but my mum prefers to be knee deep in mud gardening, rather than dressing up so it was probably one of the few times she would let me take a photo with her! She's not vain, she just doesn't want to see what she looks like when she's really scruffy haha.

I had only just started growing out my short hair, which was short at the back and sides but long at the front with a fringe so I had started to tuck it behind my ears and wear hats. You can't see it too well but I had purple in my fringe still. It was blonde for years (age 16-20) but the difference between the freshly bleached (yellow) roots and the over bleached (fried but white) ends was really aggravating me. I always went to the hairdressers and it was very expensive just to have an inch bleached but recently I started doing it myself and not only is it easier to stay at home but the bleach I use does just as good a job. It cost me around £6 for the bleach (I used Renbows bleaching kit) and I have re done the roots so many times since I bought it. Each time I went to the hairdressers it was around £30. It seems so stupid and such a waste of money now but as my hair is naturally black/brown, bleach always had a tendency to turn orange, which my haidresser always counteracted with an ash toner. As I leave it on longer than I should, though my hair has never been that damaged by it surprisingly, I always manage to get it to a light enough yellow blonde that I can put my purple stargazers dye over it. Though, as I write this today, I have a violet colour on and as it washes out the blue tones are sticking to the areas that were not bleached light enough and are trying to take a green colour on. This has happened before when I used my violet dye (which is actually Renbows 'Hot Purple' but it's definitely more blue) and yet I never learn. If my purple doesn't take well enough over it again I am going to have to wash my fringe a few times with my tar shampoo and then bleach the whole thing all over again. Which will go green before it goes blonde. My hair is constantly trying to go green. If I could get my fringe light enough, I'd try pink but I always end up going back to purple. It's not even my favourite colour but hair wise I just feel it suits.

Hyper Japan wasn't actually as interesting as I'd hoped but this may be because I was hoping to see an interesting array of fashion followers but I went on the Friday to avoid over crowding. Being amongst a crowd probably would have been better. It was also £10 to get in, which felt ridiculous because there were really only stalls to look at, which then cost more money. Watching this top chef cut up a large tuna fish and prepare Sashimi was really interesting though. This was the only photo my mum and I took.
I'm not sure whether I will be attending it again. Perhaps on a Saturday.

Art Work & Excuses

I am really bad at updating this already. My excuse is that this has been a busy week  but it hasn't been really. I actually have a lot of college work to do, I've just been putting it off. My nans funeral took place this week. Now that it's over I might concentrate a little better now.

I'm just going to post some of my past art work today. Spanning newest to oldest...which is probably the wrong way to go about it, as it progressively gets worse as you scroll down haha.

 

 

My drawing of Alisa Ueno

 This one was edited later on to be darker. There is quite a difference but I am not sure which one I prefer.

 My drawing of Ikeda Hirari. It doesn't really look like her too much so I will have to have another go. She's such a beautiful girl and I haven't captured that.

 An old attempt at water colours.

 

Playing around with lino printing!

A few old drawings from my scanned folder that I liked.

 

 

And a link to my YT account and a quick video of one of my better project art work books.