Zoo Take Two

So as usual it has been ages since I last posted, and it is going to be a running theme for this year I hope that what gets me posting again is going to the zoo. As I said before, I have a years membership to the zoo, courtesy of my lovely sisters, and I have now used it for a second time. Hayley and I went today particularly because of the baby penguins that are hatching at the moment, so we didn't want to miss them. The weather was not looking good at all this morning but seeing as I had my pass, we didn't want to cancel, the penguins won't stay wee forever. So we thought it would be worth it even if it did thunder and lightning as predicted as long as we say the main animals we both wanted to see. And as you will see the weather did vary today, we had almost everything except thunder and lightning. It went from warm and sunny to hailing and raining and back to sunny multiple times, but we lucked out and were under shelter for the most part when things went bad. 

Something I nearly forgot about was the Dinosaurs exhibit they put in at the top of the hill, we didn't think we would make it all the way up there but when we did we were surprised to see how good the exhibit was, I didn't expect them to move so much and make noises as well. It was a lot of fun to go through, and made me think of the Royal Tyrrell Museum back in Drumheller, but with a bit more whimsy. There was even a dinosaur there called Edmontonia which was discover in Edmonton, funnily enough, but really made me think of Canada, which was a lot of fun.

So all in all another successful day at the zoo, and now for the photos, I expertly whittled them down from 92 so you wouldn't be scrolling forever.

 

         

       

 

 

   

       

     

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

Drawing

I have been super busy with my new jobs, working six days a week is not conducive to blogging, but it has been great for drawing and painting, so silver linings. So that is basically what I am all about just now, work work work, draw draw draw, and occasionally sleep. Working at the tattoo studio has been really great though, I feel like I am learning so much, I have my first aid course booked for the end of May and then I will be able to get my license. So hopefully lots more developments on this end. But for now here are some of the drawings and paintings I have been working on.

Scottish Tattoo Convention 2015

The 5th Annual Scottish Tattoo convention was on the 28th and 29th of March, and since I now work for a tattoo studio, (did I not mention that, well I will expand on that soon!) I was working at it on the Saturday. I worked my other new job on the Sunday, so while working the booth I tried to make the most of seeing everyone who was working there. The people who were working the convention this year were totally amazing again, and I got to see some of my favourite people working. I had to exercise a lot of self control and save all my money when I was able to make my way around the show.

I am not working at Plus 48 Tattoo, in Edinburgh three days a week, and so I was assisting Kris while he did his large tattoo on the Saturday. So assisting entailed, setting up the table and station, getting inks and machines poured and set up respectively, and then being on hand for the 5 or so hours that it was going on to get them anything they might need.

I got to go round the show a couple times before the end of my day, and I bought a tiger print by the amazing Andrea Giulimondi, some patches on from Xam who was also amazing, and grabbed a butt load of stickers. I need to get a frame for my print but I love it and it was amazing watching the traditional hand tapped tattoos being done as well as seeing techniques that some of the other artists use. It was a great time.

Unfortunately my photos stink this year, and I will get better ones in the future, hopefully, when I go again! So see you next time STC 2016

Walking in Troon

We headed out to Troon the day after the Swingin Utters gig, makin it out there for the Thursday afternoon. We don't often get to spen a whole day with Daz and Mhairi so it was great that we were going for a couple days, though I had to back for my last shift ever at Route One on the Sunday. It was still a nice couple days taking a wee break. The rest of Thursday we just chilled out and recouperated a wee bit from Wednesday night, and Friday was much the same, though we went out for dinner at their prospective wedding venue, with their daughter as well, which was really nice. So nothing to stressful, it was a great venue and I was going to take some photos, but by the time we got out there the sun was basically down so I didn't end up bothering. It did look beautiful when we walked up though.

Saturday we walked Jura, their Elkhound, now I really want a dog, but all the pet hair is still putting me off. It was everywhere, we have washed some of our clothes twice and it still won't go away. But the walk was great down the shore. And it turned out to be a really nice day for it. So it was a nice wee break to finish up the week before changing jobs, but more exciting news on that later.

Swingin Utters and ToyGuitar in Glasgow

We don't head through to Glasgow very often, so when we do its usually for a gig, and this time it was an amazing one. So we thought we would make a wee weekend of it as well, spend the night and head out to sunny Troon to see Darren and Mhairi for the weekend after. It was an amazing gig and everyone in the bands was nice enough to listen to all of the shite we were talking. So that was great. It was really cool to be able to see and say hello and cheers for everything. So I hope they had as much fun playing as we did dancing, singing and drinking along with them. 

As you can see from the last picture we were feeling it the next day but it was definitely worth it. Lemonades all round.

 

Three Holidays

We've got three holidays rolled into one here, starting with Valentine's Day, then Pancake Day, and finally Chinese New Year. So lets get started.

Dixon and I celebrated our Valentine's Day slightly early with a holiday I like myself, Friday the 13th. So he gave me his gift that night and we went out to dinner to our favourite spot, David Bann's. I have posted about them so many times because since the first time we went it has always been amazing. I also now realise that I basically wear the same thing each time, stripes, strips and more stripes. But hey don't mess with a good thing! The food again was fantastic, its always great to look at a menu and be able to order anything I fancy off of it.

Dixon got me a beautiful necklace from the fabulous, Bloody Mary Metal, I have been ogling their stuff for sometime, maybe he noticed. I don't usually wear jewelry, but it is so nice! 

I was off my photo game for Chinese New Year, but I snapped a couple, Hayley went to such an effort to make the room look amazing and all the food was great as well. It was really fun celebrating something that we haven't done before. Not to mention we lit lanterns, which I have always wanted to do since I first spotted them in the sky. So I am really happy Hayley put it all together to make it happen.

It was a wonderful evening together.

And last but not least, Pancake Day. It falls between our previous holidays on the 17th this year, and since that day I have been obsessed with making pancakes. I think in the last week I have had pancakes for 5 meals, that might be a bit weird, but maybe I was going through pancake withdrawals. 

Traditionally known as Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day started as a way to use up your fats you have in your cupboard for the start of Lent. Now in the UK at least, everyone just goes daft for pancakes. Pretty well everyone I know ate pancakes that day for one of their meals. So its a bit of fun and delicious!

Drawing Projects

I have also been doing a bunch more drawing, and its been fun, I have a bit of a project going which I am hopefully going to paint. So far I have been drawing animals from Endangered Species List which I want to turn it into a sheet, so I have started from A and drawn the animals in descending order alphabetically and that had good reference photos. Which is difficult and sometimes sad to find some of these amazing animals that only have a couple images coming up on google. It is interesting learning new animals, and drawing animals I wouldn't normally think of. 

 I also made Dixon a valentine because we have been watching a lot of Parks and Recreation, and Ron Swanson is one of the best characters ever. So enjoy that one!