Jewels

This summer I visited Istanbul with my family and I thought I'd share some of my tip top favourite things about it with you!

1.  Firstly and most importantly (to me) was Topkapi Palace.

It was so enormously inspiring.  Every wall was an intricate mosaic pattern.

 

There were arches and a courtyard and a very fancy looking old fashioned bathroom.  There were chandeliers and extravagant gold mirrors and a room of crown jewels. 

(The Crown Jewels were my favourite part)

Among them was an eighty six carat diamond,

an intricate gold and jewelled knife,

and a box of massive emeralds.  It was quite breathtaking!

2.  Another thing I liked about Istanbul were the shops and the bazaar.  There was so much to buy!  A lot of pottery decorated with whirling dirvishes and little blue eyes embedded in everything which is known to be Turkey's good luck charm.

There were teas of every flavour imaginable,  multicoloured hanging lamps and piles of turkish delight round every corner.  There were shops full of shoes and shops full of silverware, shops full of bags, clothes, hats, spices... It went on forever!

3.  My favourite shops though were the ones which had trays of jewels in the windows.  Amethysts and imitation rubies, green, blue, yellow, orange.  Obviously they are intended for putting in rings and bracelets or necklaces.  But they looked so pretty all laid out in the trays. 

^some stunning jewellery I saw.

If you ever get a chance to go to Istanbul I would definitely recommend it!  There's so much to see and do and it's such a lively and inspiring place.

Where's your favourite holiday destination?

Victoria Stitch at the beach

To read about Victoria Stitch's adventures at the beach, please go here!

 

Faces

A couple of years ago I did a project where I spent a week just filling a book with faces.  The aim was to observe and practice drawing the huge array of different features that adorn peoples faces.  This was something my tutor told me to do because at that time I had a habit of just drawing similar blank expressions and features on every person. 

I came across this book again the other day when I was digging around in the attic.  It was nice to look though because I recognized so many of the faces seeing as I had raided facebook for random pictures of people pulling expressions. I didn't just stalk facebook though, I went to the library and drew from a photography book and a couple of magazines as well.

Altogether I drew 190 faces! Here are a selection of them:

Victoria Stitch in Dubai

To read all about Victoria Stitch's adventures in Dubai go here!

Magic Middle East

Dubai.  My Favourite Things.

Every time I visit Dubai I return home feeling so inspired.  There's something about the atmosphere/archetecture/heat/hyperreality of everything there that makes me want to create stuff.  I just love all the colours and patterns that you find all over the place in the Middle East.  Everything is so intricate and glamourous.  The villas look like they are made from ice cream, the air smells of incense, the shops are full of gold and glitter.

I think this may turn out to be a long post...

1- I love the perfume shops in Dubai.  I like that you can choose a fancy little bottle and then pick a perfume to go inside it.  The perfume I chose smells of marzipan.

2- This is my current favourite villa in Dubai.   I would love to live in a house like this!  It looks like it has been carved out of pink cake.

3- This is my favourite-looking mall in Dubai.  It is called Mercato Mall.  It's a pastel rainbow.

 4- My favourite patterned lamps, clusters of shining rainbow balls. I want some in my own house!

(I drew these^ ones using black line...)

(and these^ ones without black line.  Can't decide which ones I prefer.  Opinions?)

5- On one of the nights we went to Abu Dhabi to look at the Palace Hotel which was amazing. Everything was gold and cream and expensive.

(Palace Hotel ceiling^)

We actually ended up eating there in the end.  I have never seen so many tiny little puddings all together in one place before!  I loved being able to just pick as many as I wanted (as it was an all you can eat kind of restaurant) and then eat them all!

This^ is only a tiny portion of what was available.  All the puddings had gold leaf sprinkled on them and there were green chocolate shards sticking out of some of the cakes and mousses. It makes my mouth water to look at them again.  Victoria Stitch would have loved the Palace Hotel.

6-  Along with these puddings there were also arabic sweets.  I love trying different types of foods so I tried them all! 

 I found them sweeter and stickier than English puddings.  But in a good way. (click to enlarge)

7-  There are so many shops selling jewellery.  Big sparkly interesting kind of jewellery.  My favourite piece I saw was a necklace with diamante stars on it, big stars, lots of crystals, very glittery.

8- The rugs.  I love the patterned rugs.  I bought two very tiny miniature ones. They sit on my bed side table now. 

And this concludes my Dubai favourite things list!  You may have to click on some of the images to make them bigger.  I find I can't seem to enlarge pictures on blogger anymore without them going blurry.  Does anyone else have this problem by the way?

Which places inspire you most?

Victoria Stitch packs for holiday

Victoria Stitch is packing for her holiday.

She does not travel light!

She has so many very necessary items to bring...

Her striped swimming costume with matching goggles, flippers, hat and swimasaurus rubber ring.

Her Royal travelling crown.  (After all, she is the Queen!)

Her complete art set, including crayons, colouring pencils and paint.

Sunhat and suncream- factor 100 for her delicate paper white skin...

Travel sweets and snacks...

A bucket and spade for all those sand Palaces she will order Pink Rabbit to build...

Make up and glitter (very important)...

 Mustn't forget her pink toothbrush!

And that's all before she even packs her clothes!

(all writing and images are copyright to me) 
to read more about Victoria Stitch's misadventures go HERE!

Illustrated Recipe

I finally got around to making an illustrated recipe for the recipelook blog!  I was meaning to do it for ages.  Here's what I sent in:

(click to enlarge)

I've sent it in to them so I hope they show it!

To read more bout Victoria Stitch's baking day go here!

I was inspired to do this because the other day me and my friend made the nicest fairy cakes ever! They were wheat free and sugar free with cream cheese icing.  We  put a raspberry on the top and currants in them.  It's the first time I've made cakes without normal flour and sugar so I wasn't sure how they would turn out but I was pleasantly surprised!

Anyhow I thought it was about time that I drew some food that wasn't cake related so the other day I drew some buffet food instead:

Here we have salami and ham, chocolate covered strawberries, shrimps on biscuits and sausages on sticks.

I don't know why it's so satisfying drawing food?  But now I've made myself hungry so I'm going to go and find something to eat!

Til next time!