Go Penguins! Part 1

Yes. Well. I haven't been on here much recently, but its due to being busy with other such things (its great to actually be DOING something!) But yes, the one big thing that has been on my mind for the past couple of weeks is painting a giant penguin for the Go Penguins campaign (Not really sure its a campaign...)! But yes, Liverpool last year had a lot of Superlambananas popping up all over the place, and this year we're going to be seeing penguins! You can have a looksie at the official website HERE and HERE and ALL OVER HERE!!

So I sent some designs in a whileo ago, and unfortunately they didn't get picked by any sponsor sort of people (which was a bit poo, but oh well!) BUT my friend Miss Jen's design got picked, and she recommended me to paint a penguin for charity (For she didn't have time to do it, plus she is a very good friend and her word it would seem is very highly thought of in the whole of Liverpool!! :D). So this penguin is for the charity Claire House,

which provides support to terminally ill children. One of the children made a penguin design for one of the sculptures and I have been given the job of putting it on a penguin!

So yes! This is the child's picture that they made using a mix of newspaper, finger paints and wool.


And Katie (like head co-ordinator of the Go Penguins project) an I discussed how to transfer this onto a penguin using only paint (as its going outdoors, so any other material would result in the penguin falling apart in colder climates), we decided we could use the children's hand prints rather than finger prints and so I came up with a few designs using Flash...



Me and Katie thought of using the colours used on Claire House's website to introduce a bit more colour into the sculpture, plus rainbow colours always make me think of those sets of felt tip pens you get when you're a kid and how amazing and bright they look! And then I tried a few different ideas...



This design was keeping with the original painting, I put all the hand prints facing downwards to try and mimic the feathers of the bird.


This was a slight variation on the previous one, trying to extend the white-ness of the tummy and bring a bit more colour into it!


And this was taking the main colour that is used for Claire House (a light blue and light yellow) and mixing them together...

And his design is the one that the people of Claire House decided on...

Which I have to say is my favourite! I love anything that is multi-coloured! I remember when I first started art in high school I would just fill the background of any picture with lines of rainbow colour so it really stood out, I felt if I did that it guaranteed me an A9 baby (we had a strange marking system, A10 was the best you could get! You usually got an illustrious merit with that too. Wow. High school life was strange...and yet a simpler time.) So yes, its a penguin covered in multi-coloured hand prints, which is going to take a very very long time to complete but I'm hoping it'll look REALLY COOL when its done!

I've got some photos of the penguin in progress in the little side box thing right there if anyone wishes to take a gander. Its quite nice to be painting again, alongside such a mix of people. You just get to chat or listen to the radio or music and paint. But my knees are hurting from the hard floor, so I'm going to bring a pillow in with me tomo!

So thats whats really been happening in my life recently. I've also been accepted on a radio course (which I thought I'd totally botched the interview for, but apparently not!) and its kind of interesting and terrifying at the same time! I've been for another interview at a school which I spectacularly failed in procuring the job due to specialising in Animation. Which I wouldn't mind, but it cost me a taxi to get there and then we had to do a test (design a leaflet in 10 minutes) and then the head mistress there made it REALLY OBVIOUS that I didn't get the job. I mean, if my application had been read properly, then people would have read Graphic Arts (Animation)...yeah, I probably should have mentioned that more in the form. Oh well! It was a very swanky school, and instead of like break bells, they'd play music instead! Which I thought was cool. And I got a free carton of orange juice. Score.

Umm. And not much else going on apart from that. Have done some very drafty drafts of Crimbo cards I may be making for people this year. Have read Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein', which was oooooookay, but nothing amazing. I wouldn't read it again. And now I've started on Lynn Flewlling's 'The Bone Doll's Twin' which I'm rather enjoying but thats because I'm a big fantasy story nerd and Robin Hobb also liked it and I sort of idolize Robin Hobb.
Have also been attempting to get into manga again (after watching Paprika) and have bought a couple more Nana novels. Which I've enjoyed. Although I know the series goes on for ages so I may get bored before then.
I made some peanut butter and chocolate truffle cookies last Tuesday...they were good...especially when they'd just come out of the oven.

AND THATS ALL I'VE DONE (apart from showering and watching How I Met Your Mother and The Gilmore Girls and eating.)

YOUTUBE VIDEO!!!1!

I'm sorry...

....but this piece of music is currently addictive for me, as in, I well and truly CAN'T STOP LISTENING TO IT, so I thought I'd try and spread the evil, I suppose (well, its not really evil....but I can tell I'll think it is whe I wake up tomorrow with it in my heado)



If it can't be guessed, its off the film Paprika, and heres a picture of robot Tokita for good measure



Cause he be adorable as robot!
Go see this anime! Dagnabbit!

Filmio

This weekend seems to have consisted of Cover Letter writing and film watching....and eating. Man, I need to get me a more exciting life. Oh wello.
I went to see The Invention of Lying on Frido with Andrew, and was not amused. I mean. BLERGH. It was bad. Oh so bad. Usually I warm to a film after a day or so, but no. This was just awful. Ricky Gervais just shouldn't ever be given a serious role in a film...because its just foolishness. Just the whole stupid religious thing thrown in with it as well was pretty much insulting to everybody's intellgence...it was so obvious and predictable it made me well, just drained. So drained in fact that I can't continue moaning about it.

Anyway, then on Saturday I watched my lovely taped Gilmore Girls, because I'm starting to enjoy it, which scares me, but I may as well go with it as theres nothing else on at 10 in the morning. Anyhoo, later on I watched this anime that I bought ages ago for a fiver called Paprika. Which turned out to be quite okay, and was as freakish as I expected it to be (I haven't watched anime in a while you see, I wasn't sure if I'd just be taken over by a tidal wave of FREAKISHNESS), but it was good. I liked Tokita, despite the fact that he kinda made me feel ill when he was eating and they did a back view of him and you could see all that neck fat protruding out there...but apart from that, he was AOKAY!



Theeeen, I watched Highlander, due to us having taped it and my mother saying she really liked it.
It was alright. Not as good as I was expecting. It made me laugh more than anything else. The licking of a priests hand sort of shocked me more than I thought I would of been shocked by such an act. Sean Connery was good! Although I'm not sure if I was not just entranced by his amazing outfit. But yeah, it was okay. I find that if I keep looking to see when a film is going to end, then I'm not really enjoying it a whole lot. So yeah.

And so today I finally watched Juno, and I thought I would be overwhelmed by the home made INDIE-ness of it all, but no, it was tolerable and I enjoyed it. I still like Michael Cera, despite me suspecting hes a big headed gimp. And Jason Bateman's character made me sad, but I'm happy that hes popping up in more films now! Yay for Bateman! And the lead girl character person...if I'd met her in real life, I think I'd want to punch her...if she wasn't pregnant. So maybe flick her ear several hundred times or something. But yeah, I'd say Paprika/Juno were the favourite films of the weekend! Huzzah! And thats the end of Claire's uneventful 2 day thing that people do every week. I'm tired. And I can't get Paprika music out of my head.