What I have learnt during quarantine

Hey readers,

So in my last post I mentioned that I learned a few new skills during my time in lockdown, so I thought I’d go into a bit more detail about them. I certainly kept myself busy; I think being stuck in the house really got my creative juices flowing (which is a horrible sounding analogy but I guess it works.)

A few years ago I was gifted with a lot of art supplies when someone I knew died, so this means I’m fully stocked in the creative department. One of the supplies I seem to have an abundance of is embroidery thread. Like, seriously, I have boxes of the stuff all colour coordinated and labelled with their brand and identification number, so I decided I’d have to find a use for it: I decided to do some embroidery.

Now, I tend to find all of my inspirations from Pinterest and this occasion was no different. Just a scroll into my ‘aesthetic’ board I found a goldmine of embroidered jeans, bags, you name it. I was so excited to get started. The first project I took on was embroidering my Kanken rucksack. It’s yellow so I decided two little bees would look cute flying around the logo. It took hours but I was so pleased with the end result that I jumped immediately into my next project; stitching a MASSIVE dragon up the leg of my jeans. It took hours and my back was very sore from hours of stooping over the fabric, but now they’re one of my favourite garments to wear. Totally worth sewing my finger to the denim!

Another thing I did with my embroidery thread was to make friendship bracelets. I’d seen patterns floating around, no doubt on Pinterest, so I gave it a go. The whole process is based off of one knot, and the designs are created with which direction you do the knot in and how many times so it’s actually a very simple hobby to pick up, I recommend you try it. I started off with simpler, six strand designs but of course there’s some incredibly detailed ones out there, the whole thing was very reminiscent of the good old ‘loom band’ days. Then once again I got carried away and now I’m left with a grand total of twenty four personal bracelets, not including the many I made for friends and family as little gifts…

From one knot to another I also took up macramé after months of wanting a plant hanger but not finding one that matched my vision. So I bought all the supplies and did it myself, as you do. I’ve also made myself bunting for my bedroom and a strap for my ukulele which I also started to play a bit more during lockdown.

Finally, in the spirit of the pandemic I made my own fabric facemasks, embroidered of course, all five of them. I’ve realised making this post that I tend to hyper focus on a hobby until I’ve squeezed every last idea I have out of it. I think it’s great that I have the opportunities to pour those ‘creative juices’ into so many outputs, so for that I am very thankful. For me this was how I coped with being stuck at home, I think it was a great opportunity for me to learn new skills that I might not have learnt otherwise.

Did any of you guys take up a new hobby during the pandemic? I’d love to know in the comments!

Thanks for reading,

-Artbookstuff

My experience of the *apocalypse*

Hey readers,

I lightly touched on the ‘goings on’ of the world in my last post, but here I thought I’d recount my experience, if not for you guys but also so I have a personal record of it too.

So as we all know there’s a pandemic at the minute and I never thought I’d see such a big piece of history in my lifetime. Was it selfish of me to expect plain sailing until I leave this mortal plain? Probably. But I digress.

The UK was locked down for the first time around March 2020, and my GCSEs were cancelled. If you don’t know much about the UK’s education system, GCSE’s are the exams you take at the end of high school, so obviously I was mortified. I’d worked so hard and now I didn’t know how I was going to be given my grades. Let’s not forget prom either, that got cancelled too, I’d bought my dress and everything. So whilst the rest of the school, including my younger brother carried on learning remotely, and my key worker parents were out doing their duties, I was stuck at home.

Don’t feel too bad, I managed to recover quite quickly and ended up loving having so much freetime to shape to my will, especially when I knew my deserved grades were not in jeopardy. Fast forward to the summer, I had my results and I was delighted. I think after all of my worrying, being given grades based on classwork and my yearly progress was the best thing that could have happened to me because prior to Covid, I was terrified that I’d freeze up during my exams and not perform as well as I should’ve.

Unfortunately I was not able to go down to London to see ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ on the West End like I had planned to after my exams, and I never got to celebrate my friend’s birthday’s with them, but all in all things were looking up. I had remained as positive as possible, taught myself some new skills (which I will probably talk about in another post,) and My family and I even managed a little summer holiday.

Then I started at Sixth Form. It’s connected to my old Highschool so I wasn’t going into it blind, and it was amazing to see my friends again. And hey; I even plucked up the courage to talk to some of the new students and gained some friends there too. For all of it’s weirdness, 2020 had provided me with some good memories and opportunities.

In November I was due to go on a volunteering trip to The Gambia with Sixth Form, but of course that was cancelled. That was tough to miss out on seeing as it was such an exciting, once in a lifetime trip. I also wasn’t able to celebrate my seventeenth as largely as I’d have hoped, but one thing I have learned about myself through all of this is that I’m actually a very positive person when it comes down to it. I’m known to worry about things, but surprisingly I’ve taken the pandemic into my stride. I did know people who had the virus and I lost a few people too, but I think I have been luckier than most.

Now I am tackling home learning, and with my extra A-level course it’s a little bit trickier, but I’m managing. I’m taking English Language, Media Studies, Art & Design and Drama, so creating art and performing in drama aren’t especially easy, but it’s a new challenge to overcome and it certainly keeps me busy.

I sincerely hope that you guys have coped during this time. I know that people take things differently and your own reaction might have surprised you just like mine did. Please feel free to comment if you want a chat.

Thanks for reading

-Artbookstuff

Who am I now?

It’s Monday the 18th of January, 2021, and I have rediscovered my blog. I wont waste your time grovelling about how bad I am for forgetting about you, I’m a different person now. I started this blog in 2017 which feels like a lifetime ago, I was young and had big dreams, but things never really took off. Now you get to meet the new and improved ‘artbookstuff’ – if any of you remember me that is.

I’m seventeen now, but you wouldn’t know because I’m still the same height I was when I started this blog. Since then I’ve honed my art skills, read many more books, acquired 18 new houseplants (that have survived my haphazard ownership anyway) and made more friends at my local sixth form college.

My GCSE’s were cancelled too. I found it very difficult to switch so quickly between studying and learning for the biggest event of my life so far, to being tuck at home with nothing to do. It’s been one hell of a year huh? I really hope everyone reading this is coping with the current situation of the world, I’m sending all of my love your way. If you’re not coping then here’s a little joke to cheer you up:

“I went to the zoo the other day but I got bored, there was only one animal… It was a Shih Tzu”

Please don’t cringe, It was the first one that popped into my head.

So I thought I’d treat this post a bit like a Q&A, please feel free to ask me questions in the comments and I’ll get back to you asap. I want to build a relationship with you guys, and to do that I’m gonna have to post more. So I’ve noted down some ideas that should keep me going for a while, and I thought you guys could help me in the comments too if you have something you’d really like me to do.

Anyway, It’s been a short post but hopefully it’s the start of an avalanche of new content. Who knows? I’m going to do my best.

Thanks for reading!

-Artbookstuff

Guess what I did…

Hey guys!

So I remember posting about my love of all things Broadway/West End a while ago, particularly ‘Hamilton, ‘ ‘Dear Evan Hansen,’ and Be More Chill.’ I have also chatted about this with a few of you in the comments of both mine and your blogs.

So last year, probably not that long since my last post of 2018 (sorry for being so neglectful,) my friend offered me the chance to go to London with her and see Hamilton on the West End!

I said no… Jokes, of course I said yes!!!

So yeah, last month I had one of the best days of my life, going to see my favourite musical IN THE FLESH! I also experienced many new things that day, such as boba tea, and had my first ever meal at Yo!Sushi, which pleasantly surprised me.

But back to Hamilton:

It was just so refreshing to see the musical that I’d heard so much come to life. The staging and costumes were excellent, and the cast brought humour and modernism to the show in new ways to the original cast. For example, nuances in tone, or slight breakage of the fourth wall (mostly King George, Jefferson and Mulligan) really brought the audience a sense of renewal.

Also can I just say that Laurens’ interlude REALLY caught me off guard.

Being able to experience such a sensational show, and seeing all the work put into even the minor details was an honour. I even got to meet four of the cast members at stage door afterwards, and got my brochure signed as well as pictures.

I am super thankful for my friend, who I have actually known all of my life and consider one of my closest. Also thanks to her Dad who took us.

Now this month I am looking forward to seeing another one of my favourite musicals, Les Miserables, in London with my family. I can already vouch for it being incredible from several accounts. The movie is also great, and I recommend watching the series they put out not long ago on the BBC. The ethics in the mini series are very refreshing.

Anyways, just thought this experience and my little review would be a good thing to blog about and try to get me back into regular (ish) posting! 😂

All the best

Artbookstuff x

It’s been a while…

I’m not going to lie when I say that this blog has been forgotten. I’m really sorry, but I’ve just been working on other things, but I thought I’d update you. My story that I think I remember telling you about is now in progress on Wattpad, and can be found on this link…

“Our Perfect World Of Awful” by jasperdragon3 on Wattpad https://my.w.tt/ZwZay9o5MU

I’d really appreciate it if a few of you took the time to read what I’ve written.

I may also reboot this blog either under artbookstuff or my other pseudonym jasperdragon3 for a school project I’m doing, let me know.

Thanks

Artbookstuff x

My artwork…

Hey there!

Three blogs in three days!!! (Or four, it depends when I post this.) That is pretty good if I say so myself.

I am also writing this on my phone so I’m going to have to double check all my spellings because autocorrect is messed up on this thing!

Anyway I digress…

As I have mentioned so much already I really enjoy creating and making artwork, and recently I have got involved in an art competition through school. The task was to paint/draw etc… a 2D, A4 sized piece of artwork to convey a hobby.

I decided to make a watercolour depiction of my band and the components of it. Over a lot of deliberation I chose to base the painting on the blazer of our band. The lapel being a stave, and the pocket bearing the words: ‘The Magic Behind The Music’

As you can see it’s quite a busy piece of art, but everything I added has a meaning:

The ‘shirt’ is covered in musical symbols, notes, and words. What it shows is… well it’s not too hard to understand this one. It’s sheet music.

The blue border is there because blue is the colour of the band, and the gold and black accents are also there because we associate with those colours.

The ‘explosion’ of colours spilling out of the pocket convey the nonconformity of the band… our friendships don’t just stay in the rehearsal room. It also shows all the colours mixing, the many ages, personalities and characters of the band combining to make something beautiful, in our case music.

Finally I will point out that the butterfly icon resides there to represent past band members, particularly those who have died. It’s very special because at the funeral of one of our members, a butterfly flew around the band as we played our very last chord. I was unfortunately not present to see this, but it still means a lot.

So I have put a lot of thought into this, which is partly why I haven’t blogged for a while, but also partly because I am lazy! 😂

Tell me what you thought of my artwork in the comments, also, I’m thinking of giving you a preview of a dystopian story I am writing… what do you think? Would you be interested?

Thanks for reading!

Artbookstuff x

Musicals: Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen…

Hi there!

So one of my latest obsessions is to constantly listen to Musicals, and I have a few that are my favourites. I just love how the music tells a story especially in sung-through musicals. It is basically an audio-book, but even more pleasing to the ears!

Hamilton: An American Musical… So Hamilton was my first musical, the one that made me obsessed. I found out about it through a random animatic of the Hamilton song ‘Helpless’ that was in my YouTube recommended. At first I wasn’t that interested, and even now ‘Helpless’ isn’t one of my favourite songs, but then more and more Hamilton recommendations kept popping up, and through time I got really into it.

Its totally ‘Awesome… Wow!’

Hamilton is about ‘The ten-dollar, founding father without a father’ Alexander Hamilton who was an orphan that made it big.

In his lifetime he won a scholarship to King’s College, and graduated, to then become President George Washington’s right hand man, and the Treasury secretary of America.

That’s not all, he also wrote many essays and papers for the government, created the American bank, fought cabinet battles and married the love of his life Eliza Schuyler.

He also did some quite stupid and plain horrible things, and the musical tells of them all. Along the way you meet Alex’s friends, comrades, lovers and enemies.

And the great thing about it is that all the songs are totally sing-able and upbeat.

Lin-Manuel Miranda the writer of Hamilton influenced the music with Hip-hop, and I bet listening to Hamilton is the only time you can hear some of the Founding Fathers of America rapping!

Overall Hamilton is AMAZING!!! Just listen to it and you will understand. Seriously. ‘Just you wait’

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Dear Evan Hansen… Also known as ‘DEH’ is also one of my absolute favourites. I don’t know how I got into it but I am so glad I did.

It follows Evan Hansen, a high school student with anxiety, who writes letters to himself (‘Dear Evan Hansen… …Sincerely me’) as part of therapy, hence the title of the musical.

But when fellow student Connor Murphy finds one of his letters and keeps it, and is then found with it after committing suicide, Evan is forced to pretend he was friends with Connor as to not upset Connor’s family.

After an extensive thread of lies, Evan can’t wriggle his way out of his problem… and what will happen when Connor’s family find out? (I don’t want to spoil it for anyone.)

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul wrote it, and it is totally worth listening to.

Unlike Hamilton, DEH isn’t a sung-through musical which is a downside, but you can purchase a book which I think has the entire script for the musical in it. I am so getting that book!

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Have you heard of any of these musicals? If so tell me what you thought about them, or come back and comment if you check them out.

I do have some other favourite musicals, but I will leave blogging about them for another day. Like I said in my last post, please share my blog with your friends so I can have a wider audience and therefore more motivation to blog.

Thanks for reading!

Artbookstuff x

My favourite book…

Wow! I have not posted in a while and I am very sorry.

I was asked to tell you what my favourite book overall was, but do you know how hard that is? I must have read hundreds of books in my life, and either forgotten them or lost the storyline among others, (because I read like five books at a time!)

I think one of my favourite books I have ever read was ‘Everything Everything’ by Nicola Yoon. The story is beautiful and is to this day a book I will probably remember forever…

Synopsis-

The main character is eighteen year old Maddy, who is allergic to the world, and therefore confined to her house. She has not left since her illness was discovered, and for many years her only company has been her mother who is a doctor, and her nurse Carla.

Of course Maddy is bored, so when she meets her neighbour Olly, she is delighted to have someone new to talk to, even if it is just over texting at first.

Through time her relationship with Olly gets deeper, and they are both determined to find a way to be with eachother…

_______

I don’t want to ruin it so I will just leave it there. I really do recommend this book to anyone looking for a fun and dramatic Young Adult book.

If you do decide to read it, or already have, tell me what you think of it in the comments. I would really appreciate it if you could share my blog with your friends. One thing I struggle with is lack of motivation and I reckon if I had a larger audience I would be spurred to write more often.

My next post will not be about books, instead I might talk about one of my other interests… just so I can cater for a wider audience.

Thanks for reading!

Artbookstuff x

My history with books…

Since I got my first follower that isnt family, I have become a lot more motivated to write, even if it is just for that one person. Anyway, ‘R A I N’ chose what I would write about for this blog post, which is my book experience and favourite books. Here goes…

I have always been an avid reader, getting less so as I lost time getting older. At first I would read anything, school sets you books to read, and I’m pretty sure I read outside of school too. They were mostly rubbish, but I was a kid with very low standards.

Then came the ‘Jacqueline Wilson’ phase, the time of my life where I was obsessed (literally) with the aforementioned author. For times sake let’s just call her ‘JW.’

I honestly don’t know how I first started reading her books, but I would say, for a good four years I was probably her biggest fan. I was even featured in her magazine, because my eighth birthday party was JW themed!

During that time I enjoyed reading and re-reading novels such as ‘Hetty Feather’ and ‘Tracy beaker.’ I think though, looking back, my favourite was ‘Midnight.’ The twisted plot really enthralled me, so much that I bought, and still have, the CD narration of it.

Then came the Harry Potter phase, which I am still a part of. I first read Harry Potter when I purchased ‘The Philosopher’s stone’ at a carboot sale. Since then my thirst for magic has only improved, leading me gradually to now, where I am sat in my Gryffindor bedroom. The best room of the house in my opinion, with deep red curtains, a gold painted wall, HP quotes galore, and my goldfish Xenophilius Lovegood swimming in his bowl.

Before you jump to conclusions, I’m not a Gryffindor. I’m Hufflepuff… :p

Now we are in the present day! I can tell you all of my favourite ‘in between’ reads. The books or series’ I have read aswell as my odd obsessive phases…

I love dystopian stories! Some of my favourites include;

– The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

–The Maze runner by James Dashner

–Divergent by Veronica Roth

(All of which are more than one book)

I’m actually really excited to watch the next Maze Runner movie, which comes out in 2018!

Then I am also very into Romance books. I read quite a lot of Young adult books (11 over the summer!!!) Some of my favourite YA books are;

–The girl’s guide to summer by Sarah Mylnowski

–Who runs the world? By Virginia Bergin

–Everything everything by Nicola Yoon

I would also highly recommend any of these books by Emery Lord, because she is such a great author and I am in love with her style;

–The start of me and you

-The names they gave us

-When we collided

…

Of course I read lots of fanfiction too!

…

So that just about wraps up this post, of course there is more I have read, these are just some of my favourites.

In the comments, tell me what your three favourite books are, and if you have ever had a book/author obsession. What Hogwarts house are you?

Thanks for reading!

Artbookstuff x

My blogs…

Hi again,

So I know there has been a large gap between this post and my first one. Honestly, I was just frustrated at how restricted this site is about how much I can personalise my blog. I guess I just really want it a certain way. I am very sorry for the wait. Moving on.

As you know this blog will feature my many interests, and there really is quite a lot of them. They will probably change through time, but the basis of the interests will still be there… So here goes…

Interests

-I absolutely love musicals, sadly though all my favourites are from Broadway so I can’t go and see them (yet.)

‘Hamilton,’ ‘Dear Evan Hansen,’ and ‘Be more chill,’ are my current obsessions, therefore, look out for references, artwork, and maybe even whole posts about them.

–Reading has been a passion of mine since I was very young. Recently it has been harder to find time to just sit and devour a good book, but in the summer, I try very hard to cram in as many books as possible. Stay tuned for book related artwork, chats and maybe reviews of some of my favourites.

-Art seriously takes up tons of my spare time (not that there is much of it,) and I love playing with different medias. For example, I make models out of Polymer clay, I have tried animation, I paint, and draw, and in the past few days, I have been working on repainting/styling an old doll. I will try and show you as much of my work as possible.

-If I am not doing art or belting along to musicals when I’m home alone, I am probably at a rehearsal or concert for my band.

See, I play the baritone, a large brass instrument. I do love this hobby, but I do it for fun, I am not going to take any more grades.

There is a real sense of community and friendship in the band, which both of my parents also play in, and I am glad to just be part of the large network of people that make it happen.

-Finally, Acting is something I love to do. Because of my band, we were invited to be a part of the play ‘Brassed off.’ I was lucky enough to get an acting role. Even though I didn’t have any lines, I thoroughly enjoyed it and met some amazing people.

Since then I have been on the (very long) waiting list to get into a youth theatre group (which I still am not a part of.) I danced in a school production of ‘Hairspray’, took drama as a GCSE, and attended a summer activity for a week where we planned, produced, and performed a specially written script. I just wish I could do more of it honestly.

So there we go. My current interests. I hope you stick around to hear more about them and me, what subject would you like me to blog about first?

Artbookstuff x