beanmilk.com

The last couple of weeks have been productive for me in terms of creative output; I’ve been churning out drawings left right and centre. I had a bit of a hiatus for a week with Heidi being so ill, but now she’s back to her usual boisterous self, I’ve gotten back into the swing of things. I’m enjoying experimenting with layers of traditional and digital media. My drawing style usually encompasses layers of drawn and photocopied re-worked images, but I’ve been doing that more recently with ink, then vectors, then more ink and I’m starting to get quite pleased with the results. This is a little drawing I did today, whilst enjoying the entire 4th series of Curb Your Enthusiasm (I know I’m behind, but it is excellent!) Thought I’d pop it up here as I will be doing with more of my work from now on. It can always be found at the usual places, www.spilly.carbonmade.com and www.flickr.com/photos/spilly, but what’s the harm in sticking it up here too?

p.s. in a final attempt to shamelessly plug myself, if you like any of this stuff, you can a nice little limited edition print from my recently resurrected etsy shop - www.spilly.etsy.com

Tags: illustration, art, print

So Heidi’s 14 months now, had her first haircut a few days ago. She’s walking, talking and keeping us well and truly entertained. She’s not very well at the moment though, got a bit of a tummy bug. Will start blogging again properly once she’s back to her usual self. Thought it would be nice to share a little illustration I did in the meantime

just a quick one folks; the highland fling 2008 site is up and running. have a look at thehighlandfling.com.

Alan, Roan and I all did our own bits on the site, and the end result is quite lovely indeed. Last years was ace fun, so if you missed it, try and get along to this years. you’ll have a wicked day and hopefully learn some things about whats gonna be happening outside the browser.

peace.

I’ve not written anything on here for a while, these days I find it hard to regularly set aside a slot of time to just sit down and type about my life. There’s usually always something more pressing to be getting on with, and when there isn’t I try and spend that time getting the cogs to stop whirring and just reflect. Time passes me by so quickly these days; I look at Heidi, now 9 months old, standing on her own, mobile, with teeth and hair and a voice and a personality. I’m staggered that it’s been 9 months; staggered that it’s been 9 months already, and also that it has only been 9 months. I feel like we’ve had her forever. I find myself penciling her into my memories, and have to stop and try really hard to remember what it felt like to look at the world before I knew what it was like to truly love something so much that it takes your breath away, and prior to caring about how precious somethings are, and how unimportant and transient are others. I’m a different person now. A better person purely for having been afforded the opportunity to grow as she does. It’s wonderful, and astonishing, and gut-wrenching and heartwarming all at once.

Everyone is someone’s child: really feeling that alone, changes everything about you.

I chose to go back to university in September, I’m working with my hands, pushing my creativity and problem-solving skills harder, learning every day, and most importantly loving every minute of it. Following all of that, after the long practical classes and continuous assessed project work, and squeezing in some domestic drudgery and then some baking for fun, I’m pretty shattered, but I’m doing the two things I love the most every day; being a mum and creating, so I’m very happy with life right now. I’m so lucky to been in a position to be able to essentially ‘have my cake and eat it’; Dave’s keeping me afloat, he’s the best fiance I could ever ask for, and I try and tell him that as much as I can.
Right now I’m listening to In Rainbows (for those of you who don’t know, it’s Radiohead’s new album) and it’s brilliant. If you’re expecting The Bends, then be warned, it’s nothing like that. It’s ehtereal and floaty one minute, piercing and jangling the next, but it all comes together beautifully. They’ve grown-up, branched out, experimented, and it works. They’re a better band for it, if they stay in the same little niche forever (not that you could every really described them as having a niche to begin with) the music would stagnate and would lose it’s resonance. Fans that have grown with the music will love it.

Heidi seems a little less than impressed since In the Night Garden has been temporarily muted.

Tonight we’re off for dinner at the apex and to spend a little time catching up. Looking forward to something tasty!

Track 5. All I Need - that’s lump in your throat synth right there

…ordered a pizza, BY TEXT!!11 Hooray the fyootcher!

We’re really bad at this. Staying aboard the blog-train when you’re busy doing the parenting thing isn’t always easy. Being as seive-headed as usual (perhaps even moreso these days!) remembering to update beanmilk often just falls right out of my brain. So, today I’m making an effort to sit down and do so.

1 day later…

I’ll try this again. So, what’s been happening aside from us moving and Dave going freelance? Well, quite a bit actually. First, the baby news: Heidi’s almost 8 months old now, mobile, and proving that she can’t be left alone for a moment, because whatever you think is out of her grasp, is in fact the-most-exciting-thing-in-the-world-ever, and will be in her mouth within a millisecond. I think eating is perhaps her favourite pastime. She has taken to wrestling her spoon from me and doing it herself, and consequently ends up with food in all manner of inconceivable places. Mashed potato in her eyelashes, spaghetti in her ears, spinach between her toes…

Absolutely no idea what Little Miss weighs now, but my back would argue that she’s, ‘really bloody heavy’, since I’m still carting her around everywhere in a carrier. I’m absolutely hopeless with the pram. She’s well into her 9-12 month clothes, and is now a size 3 in a shoe (a baby 3, I should add!) and owns a pair of ‘proper’ wellies now. ‘Peppa Pig’ wellies no less. Her eyes are dark green, her hair is dark blonde, and her little bald patch is finally disappearing. Lots of ‘Mama’s’ and ‘Dada’s’ and ‘Ed’s’ (whoever he is) and also ‘t’,'th’, and ’s’ sounds.

As for me, I’m off to uni for the second time in about 2 weeks, and will be thoroughly enjoying the life of a design student/mummy (I hope!) for the new few years. Everything’s in place, so I’m just trying to make the most of doing fun things each day with H before I’m studying each day. Thankfully, I’ll only be in classes 3 days a week, the rest is studio based/self-directed study, so I can come home and work from here. We’ll see how feasible that actually is when I try it for the first time!

In other me news, I’m currently healing a nasty chemical burn to my face, thanks to a bad reaction to face wash, which left my entire face yellow, like sandpaper, cracked, bleeding, and flaking everywhere. Thankfully after a week of glycerin cream, cortisol, antihistamines and moisturiser, I’m starting to less resemble The Thing, and look more like a normal human being. Apparently I’ve got skin hypersensitivity and am lactose intolerant. Hurrah! So, it’s back to my old pre-pregnancy vegan ways for the good of my health. Bye-bye lovely cheese, tasty ice cream, delicious chocolate… you will be sorely missed, though not by my waistline.

Before I go, I feel we should mention our little rat Ryoko, who died about 8 weeks ago, after suffering with a huge, inoperable bum tumour for some time. She’s very much missed by us and all her little furry peeps upstairs.

And so as not to end on a sombre note, here’s some pictures of H

Ah, beanmilk, faithful blog of ours, oft-neglected, but much loved, kinda like my carry-on movies collection. May this be the first of many fresh posts

I’ve now switched jobs, mostly. im freelancing under the moniker of ’sqinny’ and it’s been a fun few months. So far i’ve worked on sites with varied subject matter such as compressed air, sex toys, music festivals, business training, expeditions, energy drinks, gokarts, surf shops, photographers, the scottish exec and a whole bunch more.

I’ve enjoyed it immensely and it’s really helped me rediscover my passion for the web, as well as prompting me to get up to scratch with a few technologies i’d been neglecting. im looking at you; asp.net, mootools and yui!

Being freelance isn’t without its downsides though. i’ve had a few sleepless nights and struggled to make a few deadlines here and there, but to be honest i thrive on that pressure, i’ve always loved an impossibly tight deadline, it keeps you on your toes.

I realised too, that i needed a proper testing suite, so i went and bought a pc at the weekend. i’ve been a hardcore mac user for a good few years now, but prior to that i was a pc-boy. i thought macos was all i ever needed but having this new pc has been so much fun. vista is kickass for a start, it’s nice to see windows being brought into the present. but moreso im suddenly aware of all the games and apps that i can now use, and it’s pretty exciting.

That said, so far i’ve been so busy that all i’ve been able to do is download the bioshock demo and buy the settlers 2, but that in itself has been ace! Also next week, me, alan, roan and cole are going to brighton for dconstruct, hooray!
So, with that said, im off to work on some more websitey stuff, ta-ra!

…like siobhan said, it’s been a busy time lately. but we’re now in a new house in edinburgh, which is lovely and full of mezzanine lofts and cool terraces and underfloor heating and all things. we’re very pleased

In other news, we’re all doing well, a bit stressed maybe, but otherwise good. i’ve a redesign for beanmilk in the works that i’ll put live once we get broadband put in the new place. my super fancy virginmedia 20mb broadband that is, woo!

Also, at the start of july i’m going to be becoming a freelance web developer, operating under the moniker of ’sqinny.com’, which is (in my head at least) the word skinny, but with a tinge of the web2.0’s, which i like. it’s also swedish for skinny so its not total gibberish. I’m somewhat excited about this new stage of my career. it’ll be hard work but im really looking forward to it.

Anyway, lots of stuff to be getting on with, so i’m out, speak to you all soon!