Restoring an Imperial Model 60 Typewriter

A couple of weeks ago I purchased an Imperial Model 60 Typewriter from a guy in West Yorkshire who rents antique props to film crew and television series. I had been after a typewriter for months, scrolling through the many that were listed on the internet, but for some reason or another never buying one. It felt a bit funny to me, buying such an item online when I hadn’t seen it in person.

Anyway, my parents were heading to the workshop to pick up something they had reserved and I saw this typewriter nestled in the corner in and amongst piles of antique and vintage items, naturally I inquired. After a bit of time spent in the shop, following him saying no, that the typewriter was a prop that he loans out, he finally gave in and the typewriter was on its way to its new home.

It has been a slow process of cleaning it up and making sure everything is in working order for me to use it, but it’s been a therapeutic process nonetheless. I’ve really enjoyed taking this machine apart, its been a great opportunity to learn how it all works and the great mechanics of the early 19th century behind this lovely piece of machinery.

Now it is all done and ready for me to use again. I look forward to a future of endless typing.

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Book Blog: The Handmaid’s Tale

I didn’t really read much whilst I was at uni. I was having plenty late nights in the studio and then coming home and writing my diss so I really fell out of the routine of reading before bed, which I usually did. I read The Handmaid’s Tale around September time of last year. My sister had raved so much about the series that I thought I’d give it a go. It was definitely not what I expected, although amazing and beautifully written.

One thing I love about reading is experiencing many different writing styles that different authors seem to have. Atwood makes use of short, snappy sentences. This gives the story an unusual flow and adds to the narrative of the book.

I have been passed on Testaments by my sisters; the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. I am told that it doesn’t actually carry on from the book, but the series that was created, which produced a storyline after the finish of the book. I am overdue a binge session of a series, and this could be the one. Then I will start the book.

Garden Painting

To try and get away with how digitalised lockdown has got us all, I wanted to paint. I love painting, especially when it’s something large scale. In fact, I don’t think it’s just painting, when I think back to my projects at uni, a lot of them were crafted over weeks. I think that I love the process of seeing something slowly come to life.

I wanted to get out of my head a bit, and like reading, painting has an ability to wipe my mind and allow me to think of only that.

There was a level of concentration needed for this project as it was made up of a seven shade colour palette. Each colour was assigned to a section before painting and due to the volumes of tiny sections that made up the painting it took some time to figure out where all these were going to go.

I really missed painting, I should do it more.

 

2020

It’s been a weird old year. The unbearable stress of juggling uni life and work to then a sudden stop with the whole world going into isolation. During my busy months when I was trying to deal with my work load from uni as well as a part time job, (that wasn’t really part time) what had me working sometimes 30 hours a week, I could barely see the wood for the trees. There would be days where I would just cry from being over worked and under appreciated. I couldn’t see that famous ‘light’ at the end of the tunnel, where I would actually be able to enjoy life and my final year of uni.

Following Christmas things started to get better, I lessened my work load to just one day a week and I was actually beginning to have a social life. Going out for ‘one’ drink and coming back completely pissed – the classic. It was good!! I managed to enjoy this for about a month whilst an unsuspecting virus was lurking in the east. Slowly but surely it managed to make it’s way to the UK and pretty much every corner of the Globe. This bought a complete halt to uni as I knew it.

It turns out that all the hardworking and tears I had put in during the first few months of uni to be able to be jobless, carefree but with enough money to get me through numerous nights out was a bit of a waste of time. I am now spending my final weeks of uni at home with my parents. When I hand in for the final time in my life I will be alone, instead of going for the classic spoons brekky, after an early morning hand-in then straight to the park where we would sit and drink in the sun.

A lot has changed since the whole world has gone into lockdown. Some, even good things!! It has completely taken me off my track, the route I had planned since the beginning I started university, that end of uni but the start of my life, and I’ve survived!! I’ve lost little motivation to do work and actually find myself with more ideas, new chances to be seized. It has made me enjoy exercise, giving me some structure to my day. It has give me time to read. It has got me back into photography. It has give me time to with my parents and my dog who grows older, I appreciate that this may be the last time I ever wake up to him day after day.

There is reasons stacked as to why I should feel like I’ve lost something, my whole life plan has gone up in smoke, but I’ve really only gained. Time is precious and if this pandemic has taught me anything it’s to slow down and shut up.

Setting up a shop

I have had my website for a while now, and whilst I’ve been getting into my illustrations and different print methods I’ve been hoping to use some of the things i’ve made to sell. It took some time but finally I have a full working shop. I have started out with just a few things which I have made recently, such as riso and screen prints. This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now, not without the intention of getting money or selling things straight away, just to act as a building block, as eventually I would love to sell my prints on a wider scale … and I guess everyone has to start somewhere. You can check out my shop by clicking here.

 

Book Blog: Memoirs of a Geisha

I finished this book a short while ago. This one was a slow burner but nevertheless amazing! After realising I had been reading the same genre and of books: historical fiction, I took to GoodReads to find the best rated one in that genre, which was Memoirs of a Geisha. I had mentioned it to a lot of people who were all familiar with the book and was surprised that I had never heard of it so I decided to give in and buy it. It shines light on the sad history of Geisha in Japan pre WW2 and shortly after. Whilst being based on fictional characters, which were inspired by real peoples lives. The book follows a girl named Chiyo who later becomes known under her Geisha name: Sayuri, illustrating the harsh reality of being a young girl in japan in the early 1900’s. This book was so eye-opening for me and although extremely sad a beautiful read.

Riso

Another day, another print, this time was risograph printing. it was super easy to do, with the only big amount of time was waiting for it to dry to put the next layer on. Riso specialises in only a few colours, but it gives a great texture, offering overlaying of colours too, which gives great effects. Again I tried it with a little design I had already done, just to test it out.

Foiling

As I have just started my third year of Uni I thought that it was about time that I started making use of some of the facilities here so I decided to test out some of the printing techniques. Foiling at my Uni is free so all you have to pay for is your print out and that’s it!!!It was super easy and fun and the outcome was just gorgeous. I decided to use an old illustration i had made so that I didn’t have to spend time making something else. However, I’m already thinking of what to foil next, I’m thinking something even bigger!!

1 Year No Poo

It has officially been over a year since I gave up traditional shampoo. I kind of came across the ‘movement’ (if you can call it that) by accident really. I switched all my skincare to natural and cruelty free after having such amazing experience with SUNEETA cosmetics natural beauty products and when placing my next order of products, I thought I’d give natural shampoo a go. I did not realise the difference between traditional and natural shampoo at this point, I just thought it would be like every other beauty product I had switched to; nice and simple – with amazing outcomes.

However, since that day my hair has never been the same since. I was confused at the beginning when my hair didn’t seem to be washing properly and after acquiring more knowledge about the no-poo routine I realised that it was going to take a long time before my hair was used to natural products. After all the build up of using harmful products on my hair for 22 years it took about 5 months for my hair to finally adjust. It took a lot of patience and finding the right product for my hair for no-poo to really work for me.

Although I am still not using traditional shampoo, I am no longer using tea rinses. I just found this didn’t clean my hair they way I needed it to. I now use a shampoo by Green People which is still natural but mocks traditional shampoo in the sense that it lathers in the hair and smells nice – something I missed using tea rinses.

My hair is finally good!!! And used to using natural products. There was time where my friends and family pleaded with me to wash my hair due to how it looked … and smelt but I’m so glad I stuck it out and didn’t give up as my hair is so healthy and as a results grows so much faster, something it scarcely did before.

Ipad

I recently turned 23 and was gifted with an iPad. I had wanted one for ages as a friend had introduced me to the Procreate app which I was totally bewildered by. I have been doing all my illustrations in Adobe illustrator up until now and the Procreate app hasn’t disappointed. It totally makes every single task done in illustrator seem difficult, It’s so easy to use and SOOO user friendly, and it seems more natural as rather than using the mouse or Wacom you are doing everything with your hand.

I’ve done a few illustrations on the app since purchasing it and have to say I’m totally hooked, I cant see me using any other programme at the moment. The iPad is also so useful in other areas as well which makes it a great study partner. Since my Laptop is slowly on it’s way out, the iPad seemed like the cheapest, most effective alternative to give my laptop a little break from time to to time.

For anyone wondering whether Procreate is a worthy buy, I say go for it! It’s a one off charge of £10 and that’s it; it’s yours forever.