#also. i got a printer and i am so tempted to do stickers / prints of my art

[unknownplants]

Redraw of my first post

Its hard not to cringe at it but its cool to see how much i improved

[guyfawkesretro-blog]

Computer Club.

The smell of instant coffee, a teachers weird exotic lunch, the sticky steps leading up to the room, presumably caused by a melted Calippo ice lolly that’s leaked out of a blazer pocket, pickled onion Space Raiders whole and crumbs spread out across the brown, Kicker muddied aging carpet. A poster hangs on the wall, years old now, not even recognisable due to the gamma ray soaked led paint that’s been piled onto the walls over the years, the aging smell of hot micro processors that are being pushed to the absolute maximum, a few dot matrix printers that haven’t graced a sheet of paper since 87’ cry out for some kind of relief, kill me now they scream, why am I here? Then, of course, at last, that brown and yellow machine that’s clearly the teachers microwave but actually looks like a large, thermonuclear ex-soviet radar machine that, when approached, felt threatened and let out a large noise to warn the teacher that somebody was heating up a lump of potassium stolen from the Science store cupboard for no apparent reason. Faded Garbage Pal Kid stickers, big ones, pink ones, mainly Adam Bomb or Holly Wood, sometimes Bony Tony, stuck to all of the desk sides, back of chairs. Every now and again Peter Beardsley would smile at you from the window, with custom drawn eyes and a new haircut, glaring right into your soul – A monument to past students and boys who’d all been up in the annex, it was no ordinary annex however. It was Computer Club. There were no girls allowed in this Computer Club. That’s because it was an all boys school. Ex grammar, stuck with it’s pompous ways and the same teachers since 1917. The computer club wasn’t as old as the schools traditions however, it was a new edition. As new as something ‘new’ can be unfortunately , since it was introduced in the mid to late 80’s and it’s now 1994, the computers in Computer Club are a bit ‘dated’. Although starting at the school in 1994, the BBC Micro (Model B’s probably) was still going strong within the confines of the dusty, coffee stained room. The game of choice? Football Manager. The Kevin Toms micro management sports simulator was still going strong. Every boy was playing it. Nerd, grunger, posh speaking lad with the home PC that nobody is allowed to come round and see, the kid with the Sony Plasystation directly imported from Japan. It didn’t mater. What mattered was that you got a space, you left the class first and skipped lunch, made it up the stairs and planted your arse on the chair before any other kid could get there. Once you you were sat down, settled in and intoxicated by the arm glow of the CUB monitor and the noise of the twin disk drive, no other kid could bully you out of that seat. It was out of respect. You made it to the seat. The journey to the seat was hard, tiresome and painful. The stitching on the fart flaps on your blazer had been ripped by other boys tugging at you as made you way through the school corridors. Casualties were all but common here. Boys would be on the ground. Others would be stuck on the floor as the highly polished parquet flooring took in another defenceless victim who’s kicker boots had no grip to save them. Other boys, scream for help as they stand motionless as their school tie struggles to unravel itself from a boiling hot radiator. It was hell, but if you got a seat, you were respected, admired for your speed and courage to deter any threat of biblical style onslaught from older boys who had the knowledge and wisdom of making this journey throughout the years. You were safe to take Port Vale to FA Cup glory within one hour. Each boy had to pick a bad, terrible club. Probably Port Vale, Stockdale or you know, whatever. Who ever got the furthest with that one hour slot was considered the champion. Especially on a Friday, as lunch was longer than just one hour so the heat was on. ​As the years went by, Computer Club remained in its location but the hardware that formed the basis of the club was changing. Mr Brown, the head of the club and a maths teacher still kept his desk. Upon his throne of instant coffee and strange flavoured soups from Marks & Spencer’s, the Amiga 500 Plus still sat. Nobody was allowed on this. Even the fresh shipment Acorn Archimedes couldn’t tempt him to part. This doesn’t mean he didn’t know what he was doing. The game that was in fashion was now Zarch. Also Lander. I won’t go into it but as you know, Zarch was a ground breaking 3D polygon aerial spaceship dog flight simulator that allowed the player to go anywhere and shoot everything. The era of the football management had gone. No longer was you actively trying to be ‘the man’ by trumping your way up the leagues, you were now attempting how smooth you could fly a 3D triangular spaceship thingy through some trees. Showing off. Smoothly directing your craft whilst using the mouse that had three buttons, two of them completely useless. The attitudes towards what went down in Computer Club had changed too. Boy’s were talking about games rather than playing them. A table had formed in the centre of the room as to provoke a discussion panel. Import games were the talk. JRPG’s dominated the room as the oxygen levels depleted rapidly as the congregation of now tech savy, grey importers spke about what they were playing and what to expect form the CD based generation that we all wanted, but couldn’t get our parents to depart money for. The discussions has moved away from the whole ‘Sega isn’t as good as Nintendo’ narrative. It was all about what was next. What’s around the corner. The room never changed. The same old stickers still littered the desks and the carvings etched into the desks that proclaimed that ‘A. SMITH LIKES GRANNIES’ still gave you the impression that the place bore the brunt of some ferocious arguments and tales, legends throughout the years. Unfortunately, nobody was using the computers. The new fandango RM Nimbus machines were dull, uninspiring and had no games. Nobody cared about the world wide web in 97. The days of programming had well passes into memories. One simple reason. Nintendo 64. Whilst most boys had the Nintendo 64 or a Playstation at home, Mr Bown had succumbed to the idea that nobody cared about the computers up here anymore. Sure, some lads still used them. There was something about using a word processor for absolutely nothing more than making fictional stories about another boys Mother. A firm favourite was to make a pie chart, complete with 3D variations on a huge scale to evaluate who’s Mum was better and then print the charts off, head swiftly down the corridor and pin it to a notice board for pupil reference. Mr Brown pulled a master stroke to keep the club open. You see, as far as the school heads and governors were concerned, ninety percent of the school were crammed around eight computers in a annex, learning to code and browse the web to study for exams, etc - etc. The other teachers didn’t bother coming up to the club. Why would they? Mr Brown, for all of his coffee driven wisdom knew this was the case. As long as the kids were elsewhere at lunch, the teachers had a non-action filed lunch hour with a peaceful meal and coffee. If the boys were upstairs at Computer Club, they were alone – so, Computer Club had to stay open, never to face the axe. Mr Brown knew this. So he did the unthinkable. He purchased a Nintendo 64, four controllers and a god forsaken copy of Goldeneye. The thought of a fourteen year old taking a new Nintendo 64 into school is nonsensical. Mr Brown clearly knew this. So, Computer Club was forever changed. Boys still had Wham Bars, Frosties and Tizer, but didn’t really have any need to use an actual computer. Plans were drawn up. A titme tale of who was playing who. A random chart was developed as to allow the fairness in weapon selection and area selection. You couldn’t just role up and proclaim that that wish to play another boy with Power Weapons in the Facility, no, it had to be verified officially. There was a waiting list for individuals, teams and competitions. All this was happening under the rest of the school staff’s nose and not one of them ever clocked on. Pupils didn’t sat a word. It was glorious. ​Still, spectating was a fun as playing. But if you were too short and couldn’t see what was going on, there was one dusty old BBC Micro siting all on it’s own with a CUB monitor and a dot matrix printer. All ready, all switched on and sitting next to the Micro was a copy of Kevin Toms Football Manager. ​ That was Computer Club.

[mysticsparklewings]

Elizabeth Tower in Bloom

Finally! It took forever, but it's done! I'm going to assume no one remembers this old Paris Project I did a couple of years ago. It was a sort-of bonus project for my high school art class, as it wasn't a regular class assignment that was graded. It was for a contest-type-thing? I'm not entirely sure. It went to a college and got an Honorable Mention.   Well, when I was due for another project for my current college class, after having some time away from the original to shake off the post-required-creation-dissonance (because you can tell from the description that initially when I got done with it, I was fed up with the whole thing by then), I thought maybe a recreation or sequel could work. I asked my teacher, she liked the idea. And in terms of a sequel, based on location alone, my first thought was Big Ben in London. For what it's worth, I got a two-pack of 18"x24" Canvases, the same size as the original Paris Project, and when I started trying to measure and draw out the Clock Tower (Big Ben is actually the name of the bell inside), I almost immediately said "Nope, too hard!" And switched to the Golden Gate Bridge instead. But then my mom came in, and after talking to her a little more poking around with references, I went back to Big Ben on the second canvas. (Which means I will most likely pick the Golden Gate Bridge up again if there is ever a third one of these). Honestly, the longest and most tedious part (not counting mixing paint and ink colors because good Lord did that take waaaay longer than it should have), was probably sketching out the Clock Tower and trying to get the proportions right. It is a very illustrative/stylistic model, but the original project did more or less the same thing with the Eiffel Tower. I was trying to keep mostly in line with that, as well as realism is just not something that interests me. There is an entire debate to be had here, but I feel like, if you're going to learn art, that realism is easier to learn that stylistic. Though I am admittedly biased in this opinion since I'm basing my conclusion in part on my experiences with realism and at least two art Youtubers that I'm subscribed to that are used to doing realism and have both said on more than one occasion that they've struggled to learn to draw more stylistically. Anyway. After that, I really just had to paint the tower and then get to the fun part of adding all of the stuff sticking off of it.   That process began with the clock itself. I did not have the patience to draw all those teeny little details out by hand, so luckily my computer was able to help me out with that bit. So with two naked clock faces at odd angles, I was then left to ask what I wanted to do about the hands. In the meantime, I glued two thin layers of foam stuff to the faces, outlined the details with glittery gel pens, and got them attached to the canvas. I ended up going to Micheals, hoping for a clock stamp or stencil or stickers or something. Would you believe there were no clock stamps? Or at least none that I could find/that would fit my needs?  And I only found one pack of stickers that were all clock themed; the four little clocks you see in the upper-left and bottom-right corners, and even it was out of place. I thought I was going crazy! Why no clocks?? But then I stumbled upon an actual clock-making section. It wasn't very big and there wasn't a ton of stuff to pick from, but they did have some actual clock hands, so I picked up those. And I was admittedly thisclose to buying a set that had the hands and a motor for making the clock actually tick/tell time, but I vetoed the idea because I was not confident in my ability to punch a hole in the canvas where I needed it, etc. And which clock face would I have picked anyway? And it might not even tell time correctly since the shapes of the clocks are weird...and so on. Also, I didn't even know where to begin with picking a specific time for the clock to display, so I just went with where I initially just kind of haphazardly placed them to see how the little rhinestones I wanted to use (and did use) to cover up the holes at the base of the hands would look. The hands were already oversized, so I thought the "kooky clock" thing would work nicely. All the pieces made a nice happy little-sandwiched family after making the acquaintance of some liquid glass (think hot glue but squeezable and room-temperature). Then I realized I was not the most thought-out designer because I decided I wanted to outline the clock tower bits around the clock face with the gold tinsel pipe cleaner. The addition of the clock face made this a bit trickier, at least as far as placement goes. And then I discover that tinsel pipe cleaner, apparently, basically repels glue . I taught it a lesson after cleaning up the mess and borrowing my mom's hot glue gun, though. I then uncovered just how badly a project like this is begging for a die-cutting machine. If you don't know what that is, it's essentially a printer for fancy paper cut-outs. You put the paper and a stencil in a special tray formation thing, send it through the machine, and it spits out the paper cut out according to the stencil. I made the mistake of watching the Home Shopping Network one night where they were using one of these things, and I have honestly never been more tempted to actually purchase something from them. And once I learned how crazy in-efficient trying to cut a butterfly stencil with segmented wings out with nothing but an Exacto knife and scissors is, I really wished I had...I still kind of do, but the cheapest ones are around $70, not including the materials. I just don't think I'd use it often enough to warrant the price. But I did eventually muddle through with the resources I had to craft the little two-layer butterflies you see flying towards the clock face. I placed them that way with the idea that the clocks here are more or less flowers, and the text on each butterfly's backwings is theoretically readable. (I say theoretically because while it is facing the correct way, it is still a looping, stylistically messy cursive print, with even I have trouble making out.) The top layer is just printed stamps going in all directions. I wanted those to have wing segments poked out, but the process of doing that by hand was just oh-so-tedious I couldn't stand it. I had to do something else to keep my sanity. (And to be fair, I was kind of on a deadline here.) Which reminds me, I love my mother, but this project taught me exactly why I usually don't get her involved with a piece until it's either finished of I've reached a stalemate. She had all these ideas and experiments and things to try. It was good to have someone to bounce ideas off of, but I really did not appreciate when I would tell her I didn't like an idea and she just would not let it go. Especially after one instance where she wanted to use these little stamps to make holes in the butterfly wings and I told her what I was picturing in my mind looked tacky and I didn't want to try it, but she would not rest until she did, and then she agreed that it looked tacky. After I got the butterflies put together, I put together the leaves and the clock stickers. Some of the leaves were actually leftovers from my Why, Curious Butterflies! Piece, but I did make a few new ones. But ultimately it didn't matter because I ended up flipping them all over and using my green Tombow brush markers to color them again.   At that point, the individual pieces were good, but the overall piece (with the objects just temporarily stuck on with tape) just looked kind of naked. Fortunately, I was able to find some cheery blossom stickers I bout but never used for the Paris Project. They filled out the edges pretty nicely and made the clock-flowers seem more at home. But there was still something missing. Mom had let me borrow some leftover fabric from an apron-making fit she had a while back in case I wanted to use it, so I ended up cutting out the bird on the bottom left and the nest in the top right. There was a hummingbird too, but I couldn't cut the felt I attached to all three for a little more dimension and stability on him to suit me, so he was ultimately nixed. Since I had few of each thing printed on the fabric and they were scraps anyway, I cut out some pieces and used some tiny wood shapes to try and emulate these dimensional sticker things I've also seen on the Home Shopping Network. It's not very obvious when you look at the piece straight-on, but I think the problem has more to do with me being afraid of how far out the individual pieces should stick than a flaw in the idea. I had also originally purchased some floral wire from the dollar store, thinking I could outline the Tower and some details with it, but I learned very quickly that once the stuff gets bent or bumped, it's very difficult--dare I say impossible--to get it smooth and straight again, which wasn't going to work for what I wanted to do. So that idea got scrapped. But I was just tinkering around with it, trying to think of how else to fill out the canvas, and came up with the idea to do swirlies, kind of like vines for the clock flowers. Now, in my last WIP picture, you could also see some very thin silver swirlies too, but I ditched those because they didn't really fit with much else and I really just made them because I was in class, out of other things to do, and did not feel like or have enough time left in class to pursue a classroom hot-glue-gun to start attaching things. (If there's one thing I know how to do, it's pittle around and waste time ) Still, there was something missing. So before I started gluing, I went with an idea that had been lurking in the back of my mind all along. I took the last butterfly stencil with wing segments that I had, grabbed one of my Tombow markers, took everything I could off of the canvas (so everything but the cherry blossom branches and the tower and it's clock face bits) and started printing the pattern by hand. I did essentially the same thing with paint in blue and pink on the Paris Project, but those two stencils ended up getting stuck to the canvas to bring out a couple of the butterflies. There, the butterflies were sort of additional flowers. Here, my intentional was a leaves/vines kind of look. The palate was so warm otherwise, I felt like it was begging for an additional, much cooler pop of color, and my eyes really liked the green from the leaves, so I went with that. In hindsight, maybe I could've done some green and some about the shade of baby-blue that the eggs in the bird's nest are, but that didn't cross my mind at the time. I also thought to do some in gold, but the one shade I had that I could've used was just too yellow for my liking. And thus, here we are. (And for the record it was a pain in the neck to try to stencil those things around all the stuff that was stuck to the canvas!) My mom thinks it's busy and there's a lack of cohesion. I can understand where she's coming from, but I like busy. (This arguably relates to our fashion sense as well; I like busy, she likes plain) And I also think she may have gotten too used to seeing it in-process when it was mostly naked. Ultimately, I wouldn't say it's perfect, but my vision has for the most part been fulfilled, and thus I am happy with it. It's a good thing I took a picture of it though because lord only knows when I'll be getting it back  But I will get to see it at least one more time for the college's art festival Thursday night. Hopefully, with the holidays right around the corner, I'll find time to finally start working on personal pieces again. I just haven't had the time these past few weeks.  (If nothing else, expect a supply test from me after Christmas--the Faber Castell Polychromos are here! In the house! I touched the box!  But I can't have them until Christmas. ) Also, I'm working on a website as one last class assignment, so be on the lookout for that! I'm actually having a lot of fun with it! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram