Daily Drop Cap

esterday I found this extremely cool site called daily drop cap. The idea is that everyday, illustrator and typographer Jessica Hische will post an initial that she's designed for anyone to use in their blog posts. Not only is the work pretty cool, but I think that it's a great idea. I like the idea of people sharing their work and making things to benefit other people. But this is also rather clever in that people love free stuff, and she's bound to get mentioned in a few places with a project like this, a bit of clever self promotion methinks. 

another great find

I had given up on finding good photos when searching through car boot sales and the numerous 'vintage/junk' shops in Brighton. This was my last really good find a few months ago.

Most photos are a bit boring, family snapshots, holidays. pets. Some are interesting only in their 'vintage' look or some other reason. Anyway, I love this photo because it's a bit odd. I think someone has been playing practical jokes on this child and then taken a photo. I love how dejected he (?) looks, like his big brother has been poking fun at him all day. It's also quite odd that someone would have captured this particular moment on film. 

transport

Vietnam

litho

I just noticed that most of the posts on this page are red!

Lack of posts due to excess work and not enough sleep. So I just thought I'd stick post this quickly and then ignore the blog for a while..

It's a parrot I did in Zinc Plate  Lithography last year. I was reminded it today walking through the print studio and seeing the class there. My tutor thought it was crap. I rather like him.

changing maps

One of my neighbours last year was throwing out a box of books and I managed to salvage a school atlas from 1941, which I only just rediscovered a few weeks ago. Anyway, I thought these two maps were interesting because someone has updated them in pen, showing the creation of new states like Namibia, Ghana and Zambia in the bottom map, and Israel in the top map. 

To see bigger, click here for Africa and here for Israel.

Diana

These are some of the only half decent shots that came out of my first roll of film taken on my diana. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get more shots, but I guess that comes with learning something new. The other colour film was ruined by a guard at the airport who opened it at security! Anyway, I really want to persevere with the diana, but I'm contemplating getting a diana mini so the film and processing is a bit cheaper, just until I get the hang of it : )

blood

I'm giving blood today, and this was the most appropriate image I could find! It's a scrap of screen print I found ageees ago. Very fitting for the occasion I think. 

I think I'm most excited about the traditional pre-donation sugar binge and the post-donation free food. 

Books Books Books

I picked this up the other day, isn't it gorgeous? lovely soft leather cover and beautiful borders inside. AND I actually have every intention of reading it. 

found polaroid

Wish I was on holiday now... 

Space invader

I know it's excessively silly but I came across this the other day, which I think I made notlong after coming to uni. I have no idea why I made it or what it was meant to be for, but it's been sitting in a pencil case ever since. I feel like I could make something out of this...

cross stitched computer games?

H

More doodling 

Blues

I was in need of some serious cheering up this last weekend, blame it on the winter blues : (

Anyway, cheering up doesn't come much better than these hidden notes.

Olympics stamps

Autumn

With torrential rain, gale force winds, perpetual cold and darkness I have to admit winter is certainly here! Which means that my favourite season is now over for another year : (

Brighton is Bleak

Very miserable sea side weather of late. Torrential drizzle, wind and perpetual cold! Ugh!

Ghosts

I like this photo because it's a double exposure and you can see the faint image of a woman just behind the woman on the right. 

I also found a page on Flickr with lots of staged Victorian 'spirit' photos here.

brrr

It's so cold in our house that I've actually been forced to go into the university computer room to do work because for the last few days I haven't been able to feel my hands and I'm worried I might have to have my fingers amputated. Oh the luxury of money to be able to put the central heating on...

Poetry

I'm still looking for poetry to use for my last project, which is going to have to be an 'ongoing' project (like all the other projects I haven't managed to get finished on time...)

I will post the results as I find them.

Armistice Day

I haven't really been posting thing with themes, but given the day today I thought I would post this. At 11am I'll be observing 2 mins silence for all the people who have given their lives in wars since 1914, and it's something I feel really strongly about, something that people should remember. Anyway, I'm not sure if this is really appropriate or not, but it's a page from a school atlas from 1941, as you can see from the German flag, we were still at war. I just think it's interesting to look at that and think about how much the world has changed in the last 100 years or so. 

Winter

Winter is here! I went to London for the day yesterday to look at venues for our degree show. After coming home pretty tired and feeling a bit lazy I didn't end up doing all that much work.  I just rifled around my room for more things for our mum project, and came across this, which I cross stitched last christmas with the intention of doing lots of them and making them into cards. Seeing as this took me a couple of hours, I quickly abandoned that idea!

If only...

Toby said last night 'wouldn't it be cool to travel round the Uk like a gentleman?' by which he meant in a cool car and wearing dapper clothes (and money being no object). If only...

Well if it ever does happen, I would choose this as my vehicle.

Utility

There's a lovely new shop in Brighton called Utility which sells lots of lovely (and reasonably priced) goodies for kitchen/bathroom etc. Lots of lovely screen printed things and letterpress cards and vintage storage. I got this food order pad for only 95p. 

More Maps

This is in honour of my dad's book launch yesterday (He's in South Africa, thus the map).

Philip Larkin

I'm doing a project in Uni called Subvert the Familiar and I've been looking at people's attitudes towards poetry. I haven't entirely formulated my ideas but I've been reading a lot of poetry as a result. This is just something I was playing around with the other day with my old typewriter. I'm was just typing up a whole load of Larkin's poems on old revision cards and things to get this library aesthetic (he was a librarian). I might hide some in the library.

Autumn

Why is it the most amazingly perfect cold-yet-sunny weather when I have to stay in and work! I keep turning round to look out the window. I wish I could go to the park and take some photos : (

Ooh la la

This rather glamourous lady came from a pack of negatives that I blogged about a few months ago (see the original post here). I have been meaning to get all the negatives developed for a while but I haven't managed to find the time to go to the darkroom yet. It's all work work work!

More old books

More lovely old book covers, bought for only 50p! There are so many places in Brighton that charge extortionate amounts of money for anything old or 'vintage' and 'retro', which I think is a little unfair to us skint students! Anyhow, the good thing about going back home to good old Guildford is that people don't really value things like this so much, so I can pick things up in a car boot sale for next to  nothing. A few weeks ago I got 10 Roald Dahl books for only £2. Happy days!

German stamps

Same again...

Close ups

Vintage napkin

I went home for my Grandma's 80th (!) birthday at the weekend. It was such a lovely day, so nice to be with all my family in one room! Anyway, she was using these old paper napkins and I just had to steal a few to put on here. They belonged to my great grandmother, another relic from god only knows when. She was a bit of a hoarder and when she dies, my grandparents had quite a time clearing out her house. I remember I also got a retro pack of tissues at the time, with a psychedelic flower pattern on it!