Day trip to the seaside

I had been feeling a little bit frustrated artistically lately, I just couldn't get into my drawing or anything really.  I needed a bit of a change of scene and so I went to Skegness for a little day trip with my mate Nic.
I think it was just what I needed as I'm feeling refreshed and inspired. Here's a few pics from the day...

Red's True Barbecue Review

Location: Queens Street, Nottingham

I went along to try out Red's as I'd been hearing good things about the place and it seemed to be a permanent feature on my instagram feed.

It's an American style BBQ place which basically serves meat...it's located where Fopp used to be and it has a really cool interior. Kind of industrial meets tattoo parlour...

As you can see by the serious bible style menu , they take their meat seriously here.

I opted for the pulled pork plate with a side of macaroni cheese and an iced tea.  

The food arrived really quickly. The pork was really tasty and tender and had a sweet bbq sauce flavour, it came with coleslaw which tasted really fresh and light and complimented it well. The macaroni cheese was ok but went cold really quickly and didn't really have much flavour. I was a bit disappointed with it and wouldn't order it again. 

The iced tea was great, nice and sweet and really refreshing. It was served in a cute half tankard style glass.

I would give the food 7/10 and the decor and theme 8/10 . I will probably go back to try something different next time . I did find that I smelt of bbq smoke after eating in there though which although not a surprise didn't like. Overall it's worth a try for sure. 

Lady Luck...

I have been struggling a bit lately to feel completely confident in my illustrations, I've still been drawing a lot but I guess I had hit the block that many creative people get every now and then. 

Yesterday though I deliberately gave myself a day of doing nothing so I could get back in the zone. I was browsing my illustration inspiration board on pinterest and realised that I had not done any drawings in the American Traditional tattoo style...so feeling inspired I got my promarkers out ( they have been neglected somewhat lately) and was pretty pleased with the result...

February favourites

Well February went quickly didn't it!!!!....here's some of the things that have been floating my boat this month...

 

TAYLOR'S SWEET RHUBARB TEA 
I am not a massive fruit tea fan as I find that the flavours are often too weak but this tea is really flavoursome and sweet without being sickly. It's a limited edition teabag made by Taylor's of Harrogate , I picked this up from coop randomly and i LOVE IT. I hope I can find more of this AS IT'S AMAZING !


AVOCADOS 
I am beyond addicted to Avocados, I eat one daily. They are good for you and make your hair grow, reeeeeal well. BOOM!


PRIMARK PINEAPPLE CANDLE
Primark's new spring homeware range is really on point at the moment, they seem to have the most random candles in. I picked up this amazing ceramic pineapple candle for £2.50 i think. It's really unusual and it is a nice addition to my fireplace. It is strictly for display purposes  though as i'm a bit monica like that. 




MODELS OWN NAIL VARNISH - GUN GREY
I rediscovered this nail varnish this month, it's a great sparkly grey colour which has great coverage and dries quickly. I like wearing dark nail varnish and this is a great alternative to my usual matte black. You can get these nail varnishes from Boots and Superdrug. Try it. 

HYDRALURON 
I think this was in my last months favourites too and that's because it works. It keeps my face looking hydrated and is now an essential. I cannot rate this highly enough, still not convinced well ok then have a desert face see if i care ;) LOLZ

BOOTS BOTANICS HYDRATING EYE CREAM RADIANT YOUTH
As I'm no longer a radiant youth I need some help in the eye wrinkle department. I hate sticky eye creams and so was pleasantly surprised with the formula of this one, you only need a little bit around the eyes and it sinks into the skin well with no stickiness. I have noticed the results almost immediately and I will definitely repurchase this bad boy. Oh yeah and it's full of natural ingredients and protective ginkgo...don't get me started on ginkgo eh eh...yeah I've no idea what it is either. 

BOURJOIS BRONZING POWDER - DELICE DE POUDRE
I had been looking for a matte bronzer for a while, I was moaning about this to my friend Catherine and the babe gave me this as the shade was too dark for her; and I'm so grateful she did. It is a really lovely bronzer which gives you a nice radiant glow, the packaging is so sweet and it does smell like chocolate. I have it in shade 51 and it is now a permanent fixture in my make up. Thanks Catherine!! x

LOVE TANYA BOOK- TANYA BURR
For those of you that don't know Tanya Burr is a Youtuber and this is her lifestyle book. It ain't Pride and Prejudice but it is a lovely coffee table book. What I have been loving is the baking section of her book! So much so in fact that baking has become my new favourite thing to do, much to the joy of my work colleagues. I made her lemon cake and cookies and they were actually EDIBLE... #win
This book is not for everyone I admit but I like it so ner. 

What have you been loving this month? Leave me a comment below or get in touch on my twitter or follow me on instagram...

Amanda x

Starting out...

When you are first starting out with drawing you don't mind using basic pens and pencils but as soon as your skills start to improve and you begin to really develop a style you should take the next step and secure yourself some decent gear. 

However when I was trying to find out what materials or pens you need to use I found that people just didn't want to share that information (either that or I was just looking in the wrong place) and as a result I often used to spend a lot of time in the aisle of the art shop trying to work out what paper or pens I needed to buy. This resulted in a massive collection of pens and a lot of trial and error (and cash spent) before I ended up with a good idea of what I needed to have in my collection.  

Now I am the first to say that what you draw with is very much what suits your style and is very much down to your own preference but this is what I use and I hope that it's useful to some of you...

PENCILS AND ERASERS

One of my tips is to invest in a good quality propelling pencil. The benefits of using a propelling pencil is that you will always have a consistent nib and there is no need to buy a sharpener. I use a Rotring Tikky 0.5 pencil with a 0.5 HB lead. You change the lead by taking the end of the pencil off (the eraser end) and feeding in the individual leads. This pencil is great and whilst slightly expensive well worth the money. 

It is also a really good idea to buy yourself a really good quality eraser, one that actually removes pencil lines effectively from the paper (yeah I thought that was an essential for an eraser but it seems not to be the case for a lot of cheap erasers). Here i have the Rotring Rapid-eraser B30 , it's a nice quality small eraser.

PENS

If you want to start drawing detailed line work then you need to invest in some good quality pens. They need to have a good quality nib! And you will need to buy different pens with different nib sizes.

These Staedtler pens are one of my favourites to use, I use 0.2, 0.1 and 0.05 for all my pointillism drawings. You can get these pens from ebay for about £3.00 each. I'll review each of these pens in detail in another post. 

PAPER

Treat yourself to some nice quality sketchbooks, I like to use paper by the brand Daler Rowney. I use a heavy weight white Acid Free A4 220g paper for art work which I want to have an aged vintage feel, like this hand illustration of mine...

I have also been known to draw on watercolour paper, like my bird skull drawing here...

And when I really want to push the boat out and use the best paper I go for Bristol Board, like when I did this drawing...

Bristol Board has a smooth almost shiny surface, it doesn't absorb ink in the same way as the other papers i mentioned in this post will and in my experience it is also the best paper to use and blend promarkers on. 

I hope you found this post useful, please leave me a comment below on what art materials you recommend or if you try any of my suggestions let me know via twitter . If you would like to see more of my art work follow my portfolio instagram account here or my personal instagram.

Amanda x

Latest illustration...

Finished the first of my floral print series 🌹 #illustration #pointilism #dotwork #flower #flowertattoo #tattoo #tattooart #print #pigmamarker

A photo posted by amandainateacup (@amandainateacup) on Feb 9, 2015 at 12:35pm PST

Black and Gold....

Black and Gold by amandainateacup

I love making sets on Polyvore...if you are not familiar click here it's a great way to make a visual wish list of things you can only dream of owning...I like to think of it as the grown up electronic version of Fuzzy Felts. Yeah you're right they were awesome!

I'm in the mood for a little bit of black and gold on this fine Sunday post-valentines day afternoon. I'm not sure exactly how practical the gold rucksack is but I am loving the Jeffrey Campbell brogues.