This Week I...

...went to New York with work! We took a group of 39 art students to see the famous galleries and tourists attractions. Even though I've been to New York twice before there were still things on the itinerary that I hadn't done before. These included:

Going to the viewing platform of the Rockefeller Centre. This was actually our third attempt to go up as the first two were rescheduled due to poor visibility.

We went to the Guggenheim. The other art galleries we visited were the Met, the MOMA and the Whitney, all of which I'd visited before, but this was my first time at the Guggenheim. The building is amazing and unlike any other art space I've been to.

On one day we got up super early and headed down town to catch the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. It was cool to be so close to the Statue of Liberty and we gave the students a competition to see who could produce the best drawing of it, and Ellis Island was very interesting. It's cafe wasn't bad either.

Having got back today I'm thankful that I have the rest of the week off, as it's half term, to recover from a very busy few days.

Sketchbooks #1 New York

When I was sorting through my room recently I stopped to look through my old sketchbooks and I thought they were worth sharing. The first one I'm going to show you is from my trip to New York with college when I was doing my art foundation course in 2009. Everything in the sketchbook was done after the trip because our luggage, which had my sketchbook in, got lost (nightmare!) and wasn't returned until a few days after we got back

I did a whole page on money cos everything is a memory! When I was in the big Virgin Megastore in Time Square I hugged the Country section. Mel B from the Spice Girls was also doing a signing there. Mel actual B!

There was snow in Central Park while we were there which made chalk and charcoal a good choice. I drew on a newspaper that I picked up there working from a photo I'd taken.

Squirrel!

I used chalk pastels on black paper to capture this night scene, which could have been a view from the Empire State building, I can't quite remember.

And I made my own version of a mosaic subway sign using more of the newspaper.

See more from a different New York trip (where my luggage actually came with me) here.

Secret Santa bracelet

This bracelet was one of the presents I gave my friend Lizzi as part of our Secret Santa this Christmas.

I picked out all the charms from a bead shop in New York called the Bead Center and it's also where I bought my E6000 glue.

The shop had tables full of different charms (and beads and findings and stones and strings) and I was given a tray and some small plastic bags to put my chosen charms in.

Lizzi had spent Christmas 2011 in New York so I made sure to pick out some related charms, like this I heart NY one, and the Statue of Liberty. Then I picked some charms relating to her other interests, like the shoe and cupcake. And I also picked out some I thought were cute, like the star and the umbrella.

I think she liked it.

And it turned out that Lizzi had me for Secret Santa!

I got socks.

Ha.

And an ArtPass which looks pretty cool.

Painting: New York

This new painting is based on a photograph that I took in New York during a night bus tour which took us from Manhattan to Brooklyn and back. So good.

Since I was in a moving vehicle the photo was a bit fuzzy, but that's why I thought it would be interesting to paint it. I thought I was done with it but now looking at this photo of the painting, I'm not sure about that shadow man in the middle. I might fix that. I guess I could just call it abstract.

It is oil on canvas and measures 40x50 inches.

Get glueing

When I was in America I bought some cool stuff. Including Brad Paisley's Diary of a Player, an NYPD t-shirt, a guitar shaped fly swat, red party cups, and this stuff...

The blogosphere raves about E6000 glue so when I saw it in a little bead shop on my last morning in New York I didn't hesitate to grab it.

Actually there was some hesitation, over whether to get the big or the small tube.

I went for the big tube. It's not like I'll be going back to the US to re-stock any time soon.

I've used the glue to make these.

And these!

I bought these from Hobbycraft ages ago and they've been sat in a drawer waiting for this moment.

I wiggled the bits of metal off the back and glued them to some similarly coloured ring blanks.

I haven't decided what to put in the middle yet. Decorative paper? Just a whole lot of glitter?

I've still got a lot of Paua shells so I stuck one of them on a ring blank.

And then I stuck anything else I could find on to rings blanks.

And then I told myself to stop.

Cos I could easily get carried away.

New York!

So here's what I got up to in New York

After flying from Nashville to New York, in a tiny little plane, Joss and I were reunited with our other sister Lucy who wasn't too bothered about Nashville so she just joined us for the NY part of the trip.

For lunch one day we went to Ellen's Stardust Diner.

All the waitstaff are singers and take it in turns to perform around the diner.

This is our waiter Rufus singing Folsom Prison Blues (Of course! Can't escape country) complete with tambourine.

Also that day we went to the Broadway flea market which benefits the Broadway Cares charity.

It was pretty much the reason why Lucy decided we should go to New York at the that time.

On another day we explored the lower half of Central Park which included eating a delicious lunch from Whole Foods on some bleachers. Yes I did pretend I was in Grease.

And speaking of lunch I had some of the best sandwiches in New York, actually in America generally.

My favourite was a honey maple turkey and bacon from The Bread Factory. So good!

And speaking of bacon my sister got interviewed in Times Square about the bacon shortage that might happen! Check out the footage here. Oh, and did I mention the interviewer was a Muppet? So good!

We walked the High Line, which is a public park built on an old elevated rail road.

You know I love miniatures so it was cool to come across this little guy.

We went on some bus and boat tours including a night tour where I got photos like this one.

We also went on a bus tour round Brooklyn and as we went over the Manhattan bridge the tour guide got out his phone, put it to the microphone and started playing 'Empire State of Mind'. It was awesome. 

Of course we couldn't go to New York without hitting the shops.

Though my favourites were the toy stores (also the chocolate stores for the free samples). We went to FAO Schwartz looking for the walk-on piano like in the movie Big, but we ended up finding the place you can get your very own Muppet made! My sister was willing to hand over the $99 to do so and that's her Muppet on the left.

So that was my holiday.

Have any of you been to New York? What's your favourite thing about it?

I'm on the case

Ages ago I bought this case from a flea market in Norwich for £3.

Boom. Bargain town.

I liked that it has a strap as that means I can use it as handbag, in a quirky kinda way.

Even though I planned to re-cover the case I tried to get the square of pen ink off the front.

Water didn't work so I tried some alcohol hand gel and it got some of it off.

The pen had been put there to cover up some writing. I can only make out the words 'steam cleaner' so I have no idea what it's previous use was.

The reason it'd taken me so long to re-cover this case is that I was waiting to find the perfect sticky-back plastic.

I kept checking in Wilkinsons but they didn't have any patterned stuff that would match the red corners of the case.

Until one day I went in and discovered a new pattern!

A red and black New York themed pattern.

The inside was white plastic that was a bit grubby so I re-lined that too with some blue sticky-back fabric stuff.

I can perfectly fit in all my bag essentials; phone, purse, keys, pen, tissues, hand gel, brush and mirror.

This is the closest to a 'what's in my bag' post as you're gonna get.

Now I have a lot of New York themed sticky-back plastic to use.

If only I had a New York trip coming up so I could do something with the photos using this stuff...

Oh wait, I do!!

End of September. So excited.

Sewing on photos

I've been sewing on to photos again, but this time instead photos of my friends I chose to enhance a holiday snap.