I Need a Lover Not a Friend Tonight

When I first moved away from home, from the lovely Merseyside down to London four years ago, i found it quite isolating. Fearing if i went home too soon my homesickness would get worse, i didn't go home until a day or so before Christmas and as i drove off the motorway into Liverpool, The Wombat's 'Let's Dance to Joy Division' came on the radio. I was so happy and excited I was singing/screaming along and bouncing about the car and i guess i kind of realised the North West was still there, it hadn't gone anywhere and as much as I was missing out on the day to day shit in my friends' lives, it didn't really matter and nothing was really changing without me. When I went back to London in the New Year I bought the A Guide to Love Loss & Desperation album, and everytime I listened to it, i remembered all the revolting drunken nights with my friends, falling down the stairs at the Kray, dancing like an idiot in Le Bateau, the annual attempt to climb the christmas tree on church st (you get the picture).

Anyway it's coming up to that time of year again, when i get excited about going home and listening to the Wombats still plays a part in that excitement. I've been listening to '1996' pretty much on repeat and i love it. so much so i did a little picture. I would usually block in colour after doing the line work, but i think i like this better plain like this. less is more? god knows, i'm still quite drunk and starving hungry so maybe i just cba colouring it haha.

Still Hoping Tomorrow Feels Like This My Perfect Day

ok, so this blog is usually me doodling and whinging about how crappy my life is right? wrong. Today has genuinely been the BEST DAY IN MY LIFE.

FIRST

I got a lovely tweet from Ohh Deer who have just opened their new shop informing me they are going to send me a little prize because of all the tweeting i've been doing! how nice is that!

SECOND

My entry for Creature Mag's Moustache Illustration Awards has been put up on their website here

THIRD

I've got an internship with Tatty Devine doing PR and social media! I start on Monday and I'm super super super excited. like so excited i might burst.

It's so much easier to work when you feel happy and merry and bright, and in fact i am working on some fashion ill's for Illustration Rally's current competition. BOOM TING.

I'm Trying to Find the Words to Say, to Make You Feel Much Better Fay.

Creature Mag is running a competition about moustaches, and it got me thinking about "us great uncle Tommy wot died on the Titanic". For years I thought this was one of my father's drunken tales, a mixture of speculation and hyperbole based around a small grain of fact. Imagine my surprise when last year I read an article about the Titanic and decided to google Thomas Fay, my great-great-uncle. Turns out, Tommy had worked as a greaser onboard and like most of the below deck crew, drowned and his body was never found. I did loads of research after finding this out, until i realised there were lots of creepy people trying to add my family into their family tree, and even creepier that there are Titanic fanatics out there that had been to photograph my family's grave. NO, REALLY! How weird do you have to be to go off looking at other people's graves?

Anyway this drawing is based on a photo I found of Tommy that had been photocopied about a thousand times from a newspaper cutting at the time of the disaster. Needless to say the quality is dreadful, but you can make out his impressive moustache and how he was photographed with his pipe in his hand.

I Can Hear the Sleigh Bells Coming Round the Bend

Is it too early for a christmas post? I don't know, i tried asking my twitterites earlier but there doesn't seem to be anyone about, and vast rumors of it being down so meh.

Anyway, I've realised it's time to get cracking on getting my christmas cards ready, or i'll never bloody do them. Next weekend i should be shooting the photos for my 'adult' cards (grown up, not XXXX), but while i'm waiting for the cast and props to be ready, i decided to get going on the cards for my niecphews.

I think I'm finally overcoming my domestic violence style relationship with Illustrator, but I could be kidding myself. While my housemates are bemused by me screaming obscenities as i work, I'm beginning to worry that once i get a 'real job' my future colleagues won't be impressed. I wouldn't Anyway i drew a snowflake and then worked the kids names into each one so they get their own personalised card.

Home, Let Me Come Home, Home is Wherever I'm With You

.Our little house is nearly full, as in a few days Emily will be coming to live with us! I don;t know how long our home will be reet, as Dan is being offered a real job and is going to move to some shithole that isn't living with us :( but for at least a short while we shall be a little family <3we shall be having a houseshindig to celebrate our togetherness. I want to get this printed as a poster for our living room.

Graveyard Smash

It's Halloween weekend(!) my favourite event of the year. I love all things horror and goffting so Halloween is the perfect mix for me. Oh and i really love a bit of craft and fancy dress so seriously, most fun for me. I started Halloween a bit early this week as i made a skull pinata for my friend Sylwia's party. Yesterday my housemate Fearghal, who is a very talented fashion designer, and i watched horror films and carved pumpkins for the party, of course drinking heavily and getting ready for the party.

I also went on to my friend and fellow illustrator Quim's party and am now faced with having to attempt to detangle my hair with is backcombed, crimped and hairsprayed within a inch of it's life. I didn't even use normal hairspray like Elnet that can be brushed out, i used Tigi Catwalk stuff which is like vapourised superglue. I think i might have to shave my head.

A while ago Cornelia O'Donovan a printmaker and illustrator who was an artist in residence at my university told me that when she was in an art funk, she got herself out of it by doing a sketchbook a day. I'm not going that craycray but i am trying to do a bit more sketching and doodling, hense the Bride of Frankenstein scratching. I love the styling of the film, and my costume this year was inspired by it. Oh and i'm knitting a ridiculously complicated cardigan, which i might have finished in like 8 winters time GAH. Yet i still have time to watch an entire season of NCIS in one day, hmmmm. Amazing me.

.You've Got the Blues in Your Shoes and Your Stockings.

About a year ago, i was asked to join one of those 'What I Wore Today' sites. Someone had seen this blog and thought i would be an interesting person to follow sartorially, and they wanted me to do some Beta testing and all that caboodle. Now, anyone who knows me in real life knows i am the last person ANYONE in their right mind would look to for fashion advice, and unsurprisingly the thought of photographing my hideous outfit choices (which range from Kings Cross Prostitute to the full on Tramp Slag) EVERYDAY filled me with horror and i turned down the offer (actually i deleted the emails they kept sending me and pretended it wasn't happening).

Anyway, anyone who follows me on twitter will know i regularly refer to myself as looking like various 80s icons. I myself am not iconic, but i do have pretty big hair. Since winter is drawing in, i have been unleashing my leopard fur coat on the North London public. The term 'pimpin' was invented for this coat, and the past few weeks it has been making me feel particularly Marc Bolan-esque. So much so i seem to have a Jagger pout permanently stuck to my face.

So, for anyone who wonders, this is how i Bolan-ed my way around today. I looked particularly glam rock as i spent most of this morning testing crimpers for my halloween hair. And i have since learned, you can't 'brush out' crimped hair.

In other news, I'm getting WELL HALLOWEEEEEEENED BOI! so keep an eye on my flickr for some banging photos YEAHHHHH?

(oh yeah, when you do this shit you're meant to tell people what you're wearing so they can be you right??

boots- ox blood 'Mardy' by Caterpillar

tights- coloured stocking effect by Primark

shorts- high waisted black denim hotpants by Primark

top - white tee by New Look

coat- leopard fur by Topshop

there, do i look like enough of a twat now?)