lately

For the past 5 days or so I've been wrestling with a particularly nasty cold which came from NOWHERE. All was fine until I woke up on Wednesday feeling like, for want of a better word, sh*t. It had all the best things about a cold - bunged-up nose, the inability to taste anything, almost complete lack of voice, agonising sore throat and of course a genuinely disgusting hacking cough. Lucky old me. I also had to endure many of these symptoms during the weekend. Yes my weekend was, on the whole, spent in pjs on the sofa watching catch-up tv whilst regressing to a 7-year-old state with whines of 'it's not fair'. However, even though my saturday and sunday were a complete write off, I did get around to do doing some fun stuff.

I visited a watercolour artist at her house/studio in the week to interview her about her mostly miniature work. Her work was quite amazing, so detailed, yet you couldn't even see the brush stokes. It was a bit of an eye opener for me as I never knew you could achieve such tight paintings with watercolour. Turns out it's v.versatile! And the size of some of the paintings she showed me - 2.5 x 5cm! She was a a fascinating lady to talk to and I really enjoyed looking through her work. (It's times like these that I really do love my job and wonder whether I'll ever have such a great opportunity again. Probably not.)

This is one of Liz's paintings - I just wanted to give an idea of how small they can be - you can see more of her work here.

I also went to see the current exhibition at North London's (teeny) Gallery One and a Half: Horrorgami. The name comes from the combination of kirigami (art form of folding and cutting paper) and the subject of, you guessed it, horror. Former graphic designer Marc Hagan-Guirey has re-created 13 iconic buildings from some of America's most well known horror films, presented in various coloured light boxes. The buildings themselves are no taller than an A4 sheet of paper but are impressively intricate - so many cut out windows - but the best bits for me were the little details he included - the Ghostbusters' sign, the Addams' family car, 'mother' in the window of the Bates' residence, even an axe wielding Jack Torrance in the snow outside the Overlook hotel. It's only on until this Wednesday (14th) but it's well worth a look if you're around that area.

The Overlook hotel from The Shinning

The Ghostbuster's fire station with a close up of the car and sign

The iconic silhouette from The Exorcist 

The Monroeville Shopping Mall from Dawn of the Dead (complete with zombies)

Back at the flat, Mitch's beer was ready to sample, he's carbonated one of the batches and left the other. The result was rather good! We (Mitch) also put up the fruits of our Ikea shop - the picture shelf! Cue, photos and pictures being clipped into frames and put on display! We watched Perfect Sense, a film about the slow miserable end of humanity. How? you might ask. Everyone gradually looses all of their senses, one by one. The concept is both mind-boggling and devastating. Do not watch this if you're feeling a bit low or sorry for yourself. I actually cried quite a bit at the end. On a happier note, I also got around to doing some drawing (it's been a while) for one of this year's homemade christmas gifts.