The Cool Cats

Hello! An illustration post today! This is something I've been working on at the moment for my mom, who's a primary school teacher; having volunteered to help decorate her 'reading corner'. I've included some of my initial sketches and outlines as well as some of the paint process before the final character. We decided on making him a 'pirate cat' as pirates are awesome and my mom's class are known as 'The Cool Cats', resulting in Captain Smudge! 

Paint Process above; the photo on the right is more of a likeness to the colours as it was taken on my Olympus Camera whereas I've run the one on the left through instagram filters to improve the contrast.

Captain Smudge!

Skulls, Canals and Sunsets

We had an interesting family day out today haha! We decided to go down to Hythe as it has one of the longest high streets in Kent amongst some other notable features such as the Royal Military Canal and 11th century parish church of St Leonard with its ossuary (collection of bones). It was really interesting seeing so many human bones in one place, very surreal! I managed to get some creepy photos using the light from the door as contrast haha.

 

I love the peacock colours and patterns! 

The Royal Military Canal

 It was interesting exploring a town with so many different features as we even made our way onto the beach; this time a working one. Dad and I walked down to the Martello Defence towers while mom and shenay enjoyed the sunshine. I found these interesting barnacle shells along the way which I took photos of not wanting to invite whatever creepy crawlies still lurking in them back home haha!

 I love the expression in these sculpted characters! 

 We then went back to Folkestone Country Park for the evening to enjoy a lovely picnic supper! We made use of this awesome new picnic rug from the mornings car boot sale before exploring the gardens a bit more and venturing later up the Leas ZigZag path! It was really interesting to see some of the construction processes whilst climbing up it as there were lots of bits of brick and pottery pushed into the walls for added support apparently. Some of it was man made built onto already existing cliffs; the views were lovely though!

Cheeky magpie keeping us company!

 

We found a little mouse carved into the cliffs!

Once we had arrived at the top we found our way to the top of the Leas Town hall, for some reason Shenay and I found it nerve wracking-ingly ominous making our way straight to the edge so we edged slowly forward haha. The views really were worth it! You got a much clearer perspective on 'Mermaid Beach'.

There was an absolutely stunning pastel sunset as we made our way back so we found a nice tranquil spot to reflect before ending the day walking back along the beachfront which was a lovely end to an interesting day out! 

We found an old anderson shelter along the way which was fascinating. 

Folkestone!

"Adventure is out there!"

 Yesterday was really exciting as I went to Folkestone for the first time. It's been on my to go list for a while so it was lovely exploring all the little streets and the creative quarter shops. I really enjoyed stumbling on all the different art installations and unique architecture throughout the day! It was a really arty sort of town and there were so many different places to explore! I really loved this sculpture! It was really fun looking for all the objects hidden within  the textures...

 

 

We found another sculpture by the same artist! 

 

 Baby sock art installation! It was actually made out of cast metal.. 

  It really is a  pretty colourful town, even the harbour water was a gorgeous aqua colour! 

We found some hilltop allotments at the top of 170 steps.. It was almost worth the climb!

I spent a happy ten minutes stalking seagulls midair as they fought over some bread. 

 

 Once we thought we had exhausted the town we started to drive home before noticing this abandoned area with a giant isolated bell which was too intriguing to not stop! We walked down to the harbour again where the tide had gone out leaving all the boats stranded. We found a really lovely country park too which we spent the evening walking through.