weather chat

Let's not focus on the football.

Let's focus instead on the bloody fabulous weather we're having...and the garden...

happy monday!

This week's plan so far:

Working on some jigsaw puzzles, getting 2 new tyres for my car, 2 yoga classes, at least one England match in the pub (🤞), my cars' MOT, a funeral and waving the youngest off to Austria for the week.

engerland!

Off to the pub to watch the England game. And it's 26 degrees. Happy weekend!

heatwave chat

OMG it was hot today. I mean I like it hot... but 31 degrees with no aircon is HOT.

The dog was not impressed.

hot!

I am happy to announce that the heatwave has returned to Yorkshire.

No complaining allowed.

keep going!

Faffing about drawing birds while Neil watches every single world cup match 😴

interesting dinosaur facts on a Saturday night...

Neil's been in the French Alps all week, riding his bike down some mountains.

He arrived back today. And the sodding World Cup has been back on the bloody telly ever since. 

So I drew this tonight.

new month...new colours...

I was on pinterest last week, getting stuff together for some client moodboards, and I kept seeing loads of my old stuff. 

So, totally inspired by my old self, I put together a little moody board of my own. All the little techniques I'd forgotten about will now be dragged back to life this month.

I also came up with new colours to welcome in July...

And put them all together...

 

what I learned from posting on instagram every day for 4 weeks....

I posted my alphabet on the gram every single day for 4 weeks.

I feel like at one point in time this was the advice for getting 'more views' or 'more likes' or 'more followers' ...or something?

But I can hereby confirm that it doesn't any more. None of the above.

Indeed the views were lower than a snake's belly. The likes were so low that I hid the county thing. And I lost more followers than I gained.

Luckily I didn't do it to feel popular with strangers on the interwebs. I did it cos my favourite thing is to draw my own stuff without a brief or any demands or deadlines or the need to be commercially viable. Or to "make it smile". I did it just for the funs.

It did highlight to me though that the instagram we loved is indeed dead. So I'm thinking I might have this blog as my main posty place again. I don't feel any stress if nobody sees it here. I never get likes or comments and I'm not sure whether anyone even sees it. So it feels like a much less desperate, shouty, salesy place. And I like that 😊 

and finally...

 I made it to the end folks!

Z is for zebra. Obvs.

Y is for...

 Yaaaayyyyyyy!

Yay it's the weekend.

Yay we're having a heatwave.

And yay I'm nearly at the end of this alphabet.

Also Y is for yak.

more letters...

 W is for Wolf...

And X is ...very limited. 

So I went for the obvious, tried 2, both a bit dull... but here we are..

U and V

The most overused and overrated creature in children's publishing.

And one who's not used nearly enough...

S and T

S and T from the weekend.

Longest day today. Oh how I love daylight! June is my most favouritest month.

R is for rabbit...

I could've done B is for Bunny, H is for Hare and R is for Rabbit, cos they are my faves.

But I stuck to just this one....

 

Q is for quokka

No clue what one is ...but the choice was limited 🫣

P is for panda...

O is for owl.

Obvs...

soz, it's a narwhal

A bit naff.... but it was either 'narwhal' or 'nest'. So...

KLM (not the airline)

3 more letters from this weekend... and I've reached the halfway point of the alphabet.

j is for jellyfish

 

I is for Iguana

 

H is for...

In an effort to do something that wasn't an animal I started off with house.

But it looked really boring.

So...

alphabet cont...

We went to Centreparcs for the weekend. I did these before I went, intending to post them every day. But we were having such a good time that I couldn't be arsed getting my computer out. And I've no idea how to post on here from my phone any more... 

Anyway.... better late than never...

made it to C already...

 

illustrated alphabet...the beginning

 Here goes ... the first two letters of my alphabet..

Hello again!

I'm growing increasingly irritated by instagram. This is really quite sad cos I used to love it so much. 

It used to be: Post some nice pictures, look at other people's nice pictures, have some lovely conversations, make some new friends, job done. 

But it's not like that any more. 

It's not just the fact that nobody actually sees my nice pictures any more (and they don't... my average post gets less than 1000 views now, despite having 22,000 followers) but my feed is just full of absolute shite. Every 3rd post is an ad. And even the posts that aren't ads seem to be screaming so loudly in order to be seen that they FEEL like ads. And I can no longer have the sound switched on when I scroll without wanting to punch someone.

It all just feels really desperate. 

 

Anyway, I decided I'm gonna draw an alphabet this month, a little personal project. I'm gonna do one letter a day. But posting it on instagram really feels like a desperate attempt to win favour with the algorithm... so I'm toying with the idea of putting it on here instead. Dunno, haven't decided yet, might double-dip for a bit....   

 

Here's my colour palette...

hello hello!

If you've found yourself here and are wondering where the hell I am.... fear not, I'm still alive! I just got fatigued by posting on multiple platforms and so for the last couple of years I've mostly been showing up on instagram, with a monthly newsletter on substack, and the occasional post on LinkedIn - when I remember it exists.

I do miss writing this little blog though.

Maybe I'll come back to it? Instagram does my head in most of the time so hold the line caller... I MIGHT re-discover this space!

xx