My Fantastical Thursday - 🐻🩻🌈📫🚘 …

 Aren’t I studious and dedicated ?

Two blog posts in rapid succession, day after day. Hm, I am truly a woman with a work schedule - or so I say, let us ignore the fact my schoolwork is in disarray and my folders are scattered and spontaneous. 

My day today was calm, my outfit today was lavish, my lessons today were easygoing, and my friends were lovingly friendly - as friendly as they always are in fact.

This was my outfit for today, I only managed to capture the top of my outfit with this post-school selfie, no funny dance at the school printer unfortunately. I know absolutely tragic …

I look okay in this photo. Big cheesy grin as per usual, colourful as per usual. I enjoyed my outfit for today ! I am trying to put effort into my appearance this week, I really want to feel good and positive when coming into school. This positivity wavers and pulsates often being replaced by more somber thoughts, but I try to use my clothing as a medium for generating joy.

For some bizarre reason, three thoughts were running through my head at the end of the day - those aforementioned three thoughts still residing in my brain at the time of writing my blog :

1. The Ronettes. Yeah a bit strange, I don’t really listen to the Ronettes nor do I know too much about them - besides their greatest hits. “Be My Baby”, their most popular song was just stuck in my head even though I don’t have a particular affinity for their music ? But hey, The Ronettes had fabulous hair, seriously amazing beehives.

See what I mean by amazing hair ?

2. I don’t know where I would like to reside in the future, or where I want to call “home”. I find life somewhat stressful, the honking of cars and the bumps of roads ; the dash to school and the strenuous work after school to prepare for the next day of school, where you do more things for school. This is a life I am accustomed to, which is bearable and relatively satisfactory, but I do wonder if I’d prefer a quieter life. I could live a content life amongst sheep painting for myself. But I know I should venture outside of my illusion of a comfort zone and not submit to wallowing inside a cottage for the rest of my life. Artistic work can occur in whatever environment I am in, whether I am stressed, relaxed or a median of the two. 

3. This is what I am currently thinking as I write out this blog. Glitter paper is an amazing invention - seriously, who came up with it ? Card in fact is a brilliant item, I love utilising coloured pieces of card when I do sketchbook work for Art. I love sugar paper, the hues of pink, green and purple which adorn the pages. Glitter paper is not something I use in my sketchbook, however when I am bored I like to stare at the stray pieces my family keeps in the draws. Modernity has its perks, it created thick pieces of coloured card in bulk. 

Enough lampooning about my current thoughts, let me show you some snapshots of my day. I am trying to make more regular blog posts and retrospectives on my day are a good way to catalogue my thoughts and also show some cute pictures.

A win-win sort of scenario if you will !

My day started off with an assembly, detailing a new school system which can account for everyone who’s registered into school’s location in case of a fire alarm. This new system is said to be on a similar level to NHS security, which is interesting. That was all the assembly focused on, and at the end we said a prayer to thank the God-send that is technology and all the brilliant things it has done for us, what joy !

Amen for technology !

I then had an English Literature lesson which I don’t remember having yesterday ? No I didn’t have English Literature yesterday, thank gosh my memory is semi-decent.

I sit next to Tanjipa ( who’s a “skiyodu” blog alumni ) in English and we are reading Tess of the D’urbervilles. I feel really bad now because pre-Chapter 30 I was slandering the book : it was boring and dull and Thomas Hardy takes 2 pages to describe trees and pastoral imagery in the most banal, flowery posture. However now I am hanging off the edge of my seat in anticipation to finish the book, which is the very reason I feel bad now because the minute the book starts going awry ( even more than it had previously ), was the time my interests in Tess’s story peak. Angel Clare you awful man !

Who knows I could enjoy the Tess book. Tess really deserves better, poor girl - a blighted star indeed …

After this escapade into the tragedy of a young girl from the country, I had a free period and I chose to finish off my sketchbook double page - I’ve ACTUALLY finished it now. Once again, I am stupid and old habits fester and live on so I didn’t take a photo for the blog but believe me it looks decent. I think. I hated my layout for my sketchbook at first but I soon realised I was being far too harsh. It’s good to be self-critical but not self-deprecating, I am not sure if I know the difference nowadays.

Let’s skip far far ahead because my free period doing art was extremely calm and uneventful. Break-time comes and I eat some garlic bread and relax in the Art room. 

This was also really relaxing and still, nothing to blog about by itself but it’s nice to ruminate upon. But then third period comes and a Tanjipa quirks up into the art room, Mary Janes tip-tapping and she says to me,

“Come to Sainsburys?”

“Yes!” I say,

I was actually meant to stay to do work but oh well.

So we skip ( not literally skip ) out to the neighbouring Sainsburys and go on the perilous, thrilling and high-stakes adventure of getting Tanjipa’s lunch. Sainsbury’s really is an experience for me, that makes me sound a bit pathetic I know but I like scouring the different isles for all the different foods, items and appliances they sell. We went to a mini Sainsbury’s so this sentiment is lessened due to the fact that well, the Sainsbury’s is very small but I digress. 

I was an absolute doingus and took a photo next to some cereal and some coffee packets. Whilst Tanjipa went on a hunt for some crisps. 

You can’t take me anywhere ! Ew, I don’t really mean that. I genuinely love corn flakes with my whole heart, nothing beats cornflakes and cold milk when you’re in a rush to have breakfast - cheers to cornflakes 🥂🍻 !

Tanjipa found her “Sensations” crisps and we went to the sweet section to celebrate, no I didn’t buy anything I was there for moral support because getting a meal deal is a struggle and a half. I try to be virtuous.

Tani is an alternative DJ who doubles as a magician in the evenings and I am a jester who occasionally asks you for spare change. Fashion can really communicate a lot ! Love you Tanjipa !

After we celebrated our camaraderie through laughs and giggles with an occasional dash of idiocy we head to the checkout and pay for Tanjipa’s things. When I say “we” paid for for Tani’s food, I mean that I sit there idly whilst she scans a nectar card.

We return back to school, and crack on with our artwork. Well we did artwork for a bit and then well …

Halfway through doing artwork we get a bit bored and decided to head to the canteen to say our loving friends.

Lunch hits ! Yippee ! 

 
Jacqui I love you to bits and pieces ! Flash photography !
Jackie is so photogenic 😋 !

I had roast dinner for lunch from the school canteen. It’s actually decent and relatively flavourful. I also had a cinnamon roll from the canteen, I was going to eat some fudge that I had brought from home but I forgot to. Seriously I am really forgetful it’s crazy.

After my happy lunch break, I had two lessons which were insightful, informative and interesting. I had chatted with Jacqui for my last break time which was really enjoyable as Jacqui always has intellectual and funny things to say. A good balance between “smartness” and comedy ; extremely admirable. My last lesson of the day which was an actual Art lesson was honestly pretty unproductive I didn’t do much which is a bit … yikes.

But I had some funny chats with Tanjipa and annotated some pages in my sketchbook so it really wasn’t bad at all, I hope to resume actually painting tomorrow because God knows I need to do some practical work. I’m hoping to make paintings inspired by Georg Wachberg but in saturated inks, more on that to come ooh la la.

I hope everyone had as enjoyable a day as me or even more enjoyable, gosh I don’t want to be dictatorial - you’re allowed to have whatever a day you please, whatever a day you want.

I am currently sitting in my bed with a massive unicorn Plath adjacent to my feet and brownies to my right on my desktop. Thank you to my dad for buying me such a confectionary.

I’m thinking of about four things, each differing in their importance and urgency :

1. Clear your desktop. I came home to my desktop magically cleaned, and by magically cleaned my mum must have put some things away when I went to school and I put some things away when I got home as I felt bad that she had to witness my mess. Anyways, I hope to get everything off of the desk for this upcoming weekend - it irks me that I constantly have random items strewn across my worktop even though that’s sort of the point. Whatever the case may be for my desktop atrocities, the thing must be completely cleared - except for my night lights.

2. The Sainsbury’s brownies are very enjoyable. They changed the recipe and I’m not sure if this recipe is better than the last one they had, the other ones were more soft and the newer ones have that “tray bake” appeal of being a bit more crunchy and crumbly. Both have their perks but there’s no decisive winner of the “tastier brownie competition” I have created in my head. I realise I’m eating quite a bit of junk as of recently but it isn’t too concerning as I have quite a balanced array of food that I eat everyday. Plus, brownies are a nice snack for when you Blog.

3. I wear the same necklaces everyday. I genuinely mean this. Honestly, when you wear eight to ten necklaces a day approximately ( give or take ) it is extremely hard to switch it up and display variety even though I definitely have the capacity and the facilities to do so. There’s a monotony that comes when you’ve boiled your “necklace routine” down to a science. I always wear these together : the green necklace, the rainbow necklace with wooden letters, a bird whistle from Chile which Ben Chil kindly gave me ( hi Ben Chil if you see this it was a beautiful souvenir thank you my friend ), my multicolour faux-pearl necklace with my “Allen” keychain on it, my long beaded necklace with earthy colours, a blue suede necklace with a star pendant and a teddy bear chain necklace. I need to stop wearing these necklaces together and I need to give myself the chance to wear all of my other necklaces, I can feel their sorrowful eyes dawning upon me when I go to put on jewellery. Say no to the neglectful treatment of your necklaces ! 

4. I want to make strictly sparkly glittery collage videos. Photos are cute but if you think about it videos are more “maximalistic”. With videos I can sequence my collages to music and animate them and eeeek ! I have already made two video collages, but I want to do so many more ! Decora “skiyodu” needs to be far more prominent in 2023 than she was in 2022 - YES to subcultures ! This fourth point really just consists of colloquial talk compared to my previous points but it’s okay. I an a woman of nuance and range, I believe …

With that being said, that’s the end of my ramblings !

This has been my re-run of the events which took place today, thank you so much for reading it you read the whole blog through. Even if you didn’t, I appreciate you checking out the blog endlessly !

Have an amazing night, evening, afternoon or day wherever you are in the world ! I am going to go to bed soon … yay !

My Whimsical Wednesday - i just wanted an alliteration …

 Good evening everyone !!

I had an eventful Wednesday, it was both drab and exciting. Exciting post-early afternoon, but relatively mediocre beforehand. Not anyone’s fault whatsoever, it’s just the monotony of a January school day which urges the day to be slightly drab.

I started the day off by waking up late in fact, all on me but I managed to rush out the door and looked relatively normal. Sort of as if I didn’t wake up late and as if I didn’t down my cornflakes in a three-minute time frame.

This was my outfit for today :

Because I am a technophile, ( that’s a lie I’m certainly not ) this is actually a GIF. You can sort of tell by the grainy quality and smaller fps. It’s easier to put GIFS into blogger than videos, videos are a bit of a hassle.

Nothing like a good 72 layers of clothing for the British winter. Don’t forget the obscene amount of necklaces and pins too. I literally wear the same exact necklaces with every single outfit, so much for “creativity”, Cyd. Aish - I do sort of dress strangely.

This clown is literally me, as I was standing next to the printer. I am also a clown.

The day started off positively, positively enough. The first lesson I had was a tad dry, however I did a bit of doodling in that lesson so it wasn’t all bad. Learning about critical media skills is important I suppose, although I would like to believe at my find old age I have learnt to cultivate a positive relationship with social media. The key words being, “I would like to believe”. Who knows ? I might have the WORST relationship with social media … no, I will trust myself my intensely online phase is done with now.

My screen-time is still atrocious though.

After the joyful ceremony of an easygoing lesson, I had Art ! The fact I capitalise “Art” as a subject certainly implies I place a great amount of importance on the aforementioned subject. I certainly do believe that Art is important, and Art must’ve blessed me for singing its endless praises as I more or less have a sketchbook double-page done now. In Art we have to record our artistic processes and inspirations in our sketchbook, to show the development of our ideas in our particular subject. A very prototypical art thing for every school I am sure.

When I say I have  “more or less have a sketchbook double-page done now”, I suppose I do mean that. I always think I can add more to a sketchbook page as a Maximalist but I think I have added enough decoration to my page already. I don’t want to overdo it as the sketchbook is not meant to be  predominantly decorative. Shame on me for not getting a picture of what I did in Art today ! I am not fully prepared for the blogging life !

All I need to do is write a few sentences and add 2 more labels and then I can move on to the next pages in my sketchbook. Hooray to progress ! I far prefer doing practical work as opposed to “sketchbook-ing”. Curating the sketchbook has always felt too stagnant for me and I am certainly not a stagnant person, you know ? It’s strange really, I didn’t actually think I’d get anything done in my sketchbook, but I’ve generate a good momentum for getting it done. 

I have two weeks to get my sketchbook up to scratch, I don’t have to document much because I am relatively early in my “sixth form tenure” ( that sounds awfully formal ), so two weeks is a good time-frame.

I worked on my sketchbook for the next hour and lunch. So from 10:10AM which was when I had my actual lesson until 13:00PM. In my schedule, I have “free periods” where I don’t have a specific lesson, hence the “free” aspect. I can choose to do practically whatever I please, so I worked on my sketchbook.

Still mentally kicking myself for not taking a singular photo for the blog - apologies !

My day was formulaic, like most of my other days however my day decided to go on a downwards trajectory. I had a timed history essay to do after lunch in lesson. A 45 minute essay at that - really a short time-frame. Deary me…

I think my essay was sufficient, certainly no piece of Art but it was okay. I’m not sure what was going on with my hands and wrists though … 

Seriously, I had never had this problem beforehand. At least not to such a large magnitude - my hand just kept cramping up and cramping up, every five words it felt like my fingers were getting tighter tighter. It was actually quite painful and bizarre, I kept on having to shake my hand in thirty second intervals - it definitely hindered the quantity I wrote.

Note to self : massage hands before writing an essay ? I’m not too sure, I hope this was a one-off occurrence because it was awfully worrying.

On top of having a stressful History lesson, my beautiful best friend, who also happens to be the person I sit next to in History, was not present to write her essay. I couldn’t make worried side eyes to her whenever I messed up a sentence, which was arguably the most torturous aspect of the entire experience.

This is of no fault of her own though, as she didn’t skip the lesson. My best friend Jacqui was away in the afternoon, so that was why it was just me today who did the timed 45 minute history essay. She was off doing medical business, a shadowed project. Undoubtedly more exciting than what I was doing in school. I am very proud of her for working hard.

I missed Jacqui very much - hello Jackie if you see this, I love you !

Time quickly passed, and thankfully I was able to put my pen down and sigh in a great relief - my biggest challenge for the day came to a calm halt. I scrambled all my stuff together and ran to the Art room to meet Tanjipa, she had her last period free and I had mine free too, we devised a plan to go into town !

In my sixth form, we have five periods during the day. So if we were to have a lesson it would’ve been our fifth and final one.

I was a bit of an idiot and forgot to bring money with me, despite me having pre-conceived knowledge that we would indeed go to town so I allocated myself the role of “Tanjipa’s moral support” and esteemed window-shopper. It was super fun honestly, plus my internalised guilt of spending money which I need to do serious work with to power through was alleviated. 

We headed to a myriad of charity shops, and on the way we chit-chatted and squealed and laughed. Tanjipa even got a photo of me looking stupid next to a massive septum piercing, she really is an expert photographer.

The spontaneity of this photo is evident. My lazy crouch and cheesy grin, it’s a sweet photo nonetheless. 

As we roamed the charity shops we didn’t buy much, which is completely fine I’m all one for limiting your consumption. We found a surplus of interesting items though.

What a bizarre mousemat and coaster set. I’m not judging whatsoever though, but police men ? Eh …

Charity shops really have the most unique items.

Ring ring 🤓 !!

Tanjipa though, in the end managed to find an absolute steal, which I also do not have a photo of. She found an old CD player which was only £7 ! It works perfect as well, Tanjipa if you see this - have fun listening to your music !

Now I sit at home dormant and rested, I do have things to do. Well, let me run through the things I need to do.

1. I need to clean my desktop, seriously it is an absolute tip. Let me see what junk is on my desk. I have tons of things I need to tidy on my draws : my headphones, “Epimax” cream, a button ring, a hair tie, a scrunchie , my water bottle, wipes, keys, cards and papers and a case for glasses. Oh gosh, there’s even more things. It simply gets stranger : a salt and vinegar “Pringles” can with Pringles, fudge packets with fudge in them, and a banana ; there’s also my diary, some books, nail polish and two lamps Im not using. Oh my gosh …

2. I need to publish this blog post. That I have a better chance of completing. Seriously, I have been wanting to blog regularly for a long time, I need to be consistent with a few more posts, only then would I be qualified to say that I have truly gotten into blogging consistently. I am in the midst of writing now, and then after that I can embellish the blog with a lil the fancy things I enjoy doing. In order to get to the fun things with the blog, I have to get through the methodical things first, the methodical thing being the writing. Surprisingly, the writing part has been steadily improving in terms of enjoyability. I really enjoy writing nowadays !

3. I need to take a Bath. My hair is super oily. Anyone with a fringe will share my sentiment of the powder over the bangs when you’ve forgotten to wash your hair in order to make your look decent. I can have a bath after I’ve had my lunch which gives me enough time to settle in before bed. Having extremely oily hair is a horribly demoralising feeling, Thursdays totally going to be “my day”. Totally …

Guys …

I think that brings me to the end of this blog post !

Thank you so much for reading guys, I hope this wasn’t boring hehehe. Have an amazing rest of your day, wherever you are in the world and I hope your days are filled with fortune !

Goodbye for now, lots of love …

My Monday - 🐇🧺💐🍦💟🐔 …

Nothing special, 

this was just me on Monday !

I enjoy taking photos when it’s dark with the flash on. I edit the contrast and saturation of the photo of course, for that POP. This was my outfit for Monday the 23rd of January 2023 - super cozy and warm. I love wooly fabrics, they’re soft and inviting. The material of my clothes definitely informs my feeling for the day. When I wear cozy clothes I feel relaxed and I want to be productive, strangely enough. There’s no scientific basis in my feelings, I just simply feel. 

This is a photo of me donning the coat I wore to school. In England, it’s been very bitter and cold as of recently. It’s the wind, the wind has a beautiful way of making everything wintry. I love this fur coat because it’s extremely warm and dense, and it’s big enough for me to fit over my larger sweaters of thicker fabrics. 

Bye bye see you soon loves !

I ❤️ Painting - 🌈💟🌸🦴🐹💘 …

I really have a penchant for depicting British faces which belong to a male in stark yellow paint. Huh, is this a habit of mine ?

I’ll be discussing some portraits down below. I hope this enticing scan watercolour of a yellow British man ( that rhymed ) , tickles your fancy. You can read my rants down below. 

Guess who feels relatively happy about their series of paintings that they made, inspired by David Bailey Ross ??

It’s me ! Skiyodu !

My series of paintings which I am making as part of my A-level Art schoolwork has now been completed. 36 heads inspired by the work of David Bailey Ross - who makes haunting watercolour images. I am ecstatic !

This has been a long-term project, at least for me. My first portrait was painted on the 8th of November 2022 and my last portrait was painted on the 19th of January 2023. It took me 2 months and 11 days to complete these 36 paintings !

I set myself the goal of making 36 as David Bailey Ross had made a collage which displayed 6 by 6 rows of haunting watercolour portraits -  what’s not to love ?

I won’t show all 36 paintings, however I will show some of my favourite paintings, the ones which won’t appear on my Instagram.

Wow ! Exclusive content Cyd.

What an amazing blog, truly stunning - Skid you just exceed all of my expectations.

Enough horrendous banter with myself and let me show you some of my paintings. It’s been so nice to make art without placing pressure on myself to share all of it on social media.

I am especially happy with this piece. Personally, I have had struggles working with black and white watercolour. It’s not a natural inclination for me to do monochrome paintings. However, I am so grateful that I tried it out - as I am super happy with this head. It feels industrial and textured, two words that I adore. The light washes of green, burgundy and blue allow the “skiyodu” touch to seep through. Might have to do more monochrome pieces in the future ! My monochromatic portraits truly pop amidst the sea of colourful portraits.  David Bailey Ross has an amazing way with the brush, I am so glad to have studied his work. 

Chronologically, this painting was one of the first I had done. There’s a specific magic to this one. David Bailey Ross allows  his colours to bleed into one another, I feel as if I got this  effect down in the nose area especially. There still needed to be refining at this stage, my paint was overly wet  which caused my paint to pool instead of bleed.  Furthermore, I wanted to develop my depiction  of the facial features in these portraits and add more description. David Bailey Ross’s portraits have fairly abstract features, so I was not aiming to replicate him in this regard - it was simply a personal goal of,

“Hey Skid, how cool with it be if these had a tint of realism ?”

This is where I added a tint of realism to my paintings. I am happy with this one, however originally I scrutinised this work to an extreme extent. I am happy with the proportions and the level of description in this piece - although the application of paint isn’t too true to David Bailey Ross. That’s okay though as I did not aim to replicate his work stroke by stroke, but rather I analyses his work to be inspired and apply some of his methods to my previous knowledge of portraiture. I took the photo that the painting is based off of - thank you the Year 11 who let me photograph and paint them, will not mention a name for privacy’s sake. It was a great practice, working off of my own photos. I have previously taken photographs before, but I haven’t painted from an original photograph before. 

I often attribute songs to my paintings. Whatever’s in my headphones at the time of painting is what I attribute to the art, which dictates the emotion of said piece. I was listening to Big Black’s absolute enigma of a song “Fists of Love”. If you haven’t listened to the song it’s painful and intense, like an emotional machine. The song title as well “Fists of Love” has been burned into my memory, such a visceral track. Sonically and lyrically. “Fists of Love” is THE song I attribute to this portrait. Anyways my tangent about Big Black can wait for another day. Let’s discuss this painting. David Bailey Ross had painted in the past portraits with extreme facial expressions, the screams, the wails, the cries. I figured it would be beneficial to paint a portrait with such expressions as it was something I hadn’t forayed into previously. It’s beneficial as an artist to learn how to paint a variety of different emotions, there’s a particular dynamism and energy to a passionate facial expression which a stoic one does not encapsulate.


I think that’ll be the final painting I show today. The rest which I will show publically ( maybe 4 more give or take ), will be posted to my Instagram which is @skiyodu. So glad to have finished this series of paintings, let’s see what the later days of January and the early days of February hold for the creative journey of Skid Ferdinand.

I do sort of talk about myself as if I’m some early 20th century hero, sack of food over their shoulder, looking for an adventure. I can assure you I am not Pigling Bland, however that is the best Beatrix Potter book respectfully.

Upon reflection, I have learnt two, extremely important things when creating these portraits inspired by David Bailey Ross. 

Number one :

I want to try and cultivate a healthier relationship between me and my art, a subject who I love so much and arduously care for. Enough lampooning and hyper-focusing on social media, I am placed on this Earth to produce important work. By “important”, I am not placing emphasis on the material idea of “important”. You know the culturally significant, money-generating, surplus of Instagram likes “important”. What I mean by important work is: how enriching that work is to my daily life and my mental health. I realised through making 36 paintings I couldn’t possibly post them all to Instagram, it wasn’t in my personal interest to do so. It was so rewarding just sitting down in a quiet environment and just painting. Being present in the moment if you will.  Remove digital approval from your perception of your art. It’s extremely rewarding when you want to be productive and healthy.

Number two :

We need to take artistic risks, especially if we believe we will fail. Portraiture has not been my strong-suit for a long time. My passion for portraiture with a “organic median” circa 2021 dropped off with a vengeance, and my skill diminished with it. After nearly 2 years of creating exclusively abstract, digital work with the occasional cartoon-y self-portrait, I started my A-level course with a priority on portraiture. I cannot lie, I was nervous embarking on this series, with shoddy skills in regards to proportion and application of paint - how could I make work that I would be proud of, which is also technically sound ? 

I realised, I had to put all of the pre-conceived notions of my artistic ability aside, and I just had to start painting. Because surprise surprise, when you put all of your energy into making 36 refined outcomes in response to an artist you admire, you become a better artist !

One of the most rewarding things about this experience was slowly realising my paint strokes were getting more confident. My weight of line was slowly getting more dynamic, and my editing even more unorthodox. All of this progress would’ve never occurred if I didn’t persevere with making 36 paintings and if I revelled in my personal self-doubt.

If you have an artistic idea, take the steps to draw out the thumbnail for said piece, work out the colour scheme, draw a plan, etc. 

Even if it fails, it’s still so rewarding to generate creative output. 

Woo … the Skid Ferdinand recap is done !

Blogging is a marathon, not a race. It’s hard to sustain the energy for the blog amidst making art for Instagram on top of my A-level studies, but when you’re truly passionate about something you’ll find a way to get it done. I’m getting this blog post done !

Script written out officially, now all I have to do is customise the text and make it all fancy for the lovely citizens of Skid-ville.

Have a good night everyone. Or a good day, or a good afternoon. I know we aren’t all confined to one time zone !

Lots of love.

Mahal mahal mahal.