3rd January: What`s coming up...

Hiya guys!
I hope everyone has been enjoying the new year so far, and I hope that the majority of you aren`t still feeling the effects of new years eve.
Unfortunately, I`m not a party person and I would rather stay in my room and eat pizza with a few retro games of some sort.

Well at least I manages to leave the house once, I have got a little bit of exciting news, but that`ll come after I babble on about my life!

So we went out as a family, and with my mums new boyfriend, for a nice trip to the cinemas to see Daddy`s home and then out for a family meal. It`s been a while since we did anything as a family since we`re all always so busy and end up not seeing each other even though we live in the same house! I guess as we`ve gotten older we`ve gained so much responsibility that it becomes harder and harder to spend quality time with each other, so I`ve the Christmas period I`ve tried to stay at home and spend time with the family but we`re all still quite busy... Even at Christmas! So it was lucky of us to get at least one day out, even if it was only to the cinema and to then stuff our faces! But anyways, Daddy`s Home is hilarious, it had my mum in tears at one point and I managed to crack a smile! (at one point anyways).
As usual, I also managed to devour a carvery dinner at Bartlewood lodge and then devour the most amazing chocolate fudge sensation I`ve had so far... :3 twas amazing!

Here`s the first good bit of news, everything is ready for my University interviews; I`ve constantly got this weird feeling in the back of my head that my portfolio has been moved or that someone has taken it away... Like the anxiety is kicking in badly now and I can`t stop panicking about something that clearly isn`t going to happen...
But yeah, everything is ready and set to go now, I`m just waiting until I go back to sixth form so I can finish off some tiny, tiny pieces that need to go into a design book I have; I`m just taking it to show thought processes and design ideas... I need to impress them with everything I could possibly drag along with me.

The other bit of good news, is a little site called Live Hereos...
I`ve literally just come across this site on facebook and I thought that I would try it out to see what I can do with something like this.
So you basically pick a piece of clothing, men`s wear, women`s wear and dresses and then any accessories. You upload an image of you design and change it too fit the clothing, then you put it up for selling. IT`S AS EASY AS THAT!
here`s the downside, in my opinion this is the downside but there will obviously be people with a different opinion, so if you think anything else then be free to tell me! I would love to meet someone else who`s used the site before... since I`m new and all.
~Now here`s the downside, It`s so bloody expensive! A hoodie on there is about £55! Where I`m from, they get too about £30 and everyone backs off! But here`s the good bit!
It`s going to help me out so much throughout university!
By selling your work on this site, you get 20% of the money you make, it then gets transferred into points and then when you`ve got a certain amount, It`s transferred back into money and into your bank account.
When I get used to using this site, I`m going to begin producing designs specifically for this site. Due to how expensive it can be on there also, I`ll be keeping all of my designs strictly too T-shirts for now; If I sell some of the more serious designs I`ll most probably transfer them over onto other items of clothing, both for women and men!

So I`m definitely excited for the new year, University, new friends, new course, a new job and then experimenting with my own clothing!
How fun :3
I`ll also leave a link down below (with the others), to my profile on the site, at the moment I have only one design but I`ll be adding it in from now on.

My little sister is a bit of a poser
bring on the New Year!

Live Diary: http://melonheadamy-livediaryblogging.blogspot.co.uk/
art Blog: http://melonheadamy-artblogging.blogspot.co.uk/
Anime Reviews: http://melonheadamy-animereviews.blogspot.co.uk/
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Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/AmyWatkinson
Deviantart: http://amywatkinson.deviantart.com/
Instagram: amy_marshy_melonsLive Hereos: https://liveheroes.com/profile/melonhead-amy

25th December; Happy Holidays!

We got slightly lost in an outdoor maze... oops!
Rather wind swept all the way up there!

Well lately I`ve been busy, like... Extremely busy.I haven`t had much of a break for a while and my sixth form has luckily given us two weeks and a day off of working; which would be good if I didn`t have so much stuff to be preparing for right now!
As soon as I get back to Sixth form, I`ll have exactly one more day to get myself prepared for my University Interviews... Yeah, it sucks doesn`t it :/

My very first Interview is on the 6th of January, which means I`ll have to collect together all of the Interviewing requirements and then I`ll be off the next day for the interviewing process. It`ll last about 2-3 hours and I`ll most probably be there even longer since there may be an exception to a little tour of the facilities... According to the information I`ve been given.
Of course I`m looking forward to it, but bloody hell! I`m ridiculously nervous right now and I`m no where near finishing off all of my other written pieces that they`ve asked to see. Panic mode i slowly setting in now...

I`ve managed to take some time out to relax however...
I spent four days in Mablethorpe with my boyfriend, david, and his grandad; his Grandad lives up there in the cutest little Bungalow I`ve ever seen!
We arrived there quite late, and me being completely awkward, I dragged David along so we could go for an evening walk on the beach. I thought it would be a cute thing to do... You know, a little walk on the beach with your loved one, really cute idea, right?
Well I was bloody wrong, the first five minutes where fine and then it started to feel creepy down there. So, we ran back like idiots and had a quite walk through the town instead. I definitely prefer beaches in the winter (If the weather isn`t too bad), it was nice and quite; un-like summer when people swarm to the beaches with their screaming children... Jesus.

We did some weird things, mostly fish related; and god I love fishes, they have to be one of the cutest and most colorful animals that I actually enjoy watching. Davids granddad has three huge fishtanks aswell so I mostly fell asleep watching the fish just blub around.
One the places that we went to was a giant airstrip, and the bunker that they used to keep the large planes in (Forgot the proper name) was a big aquarium, which did also house some snakes and tarantulas... But they aren`t cute so I`ll just leave them out. so when you first walk in, there`s a ramp that takes you up to a dark pool that has some of the largest fish I`ve seen! There aren`t a lot of aquariums around Ilkeston, so that`s why I was impressed... Simple minded me. Anyway, you could pet and feed the fish, and the one that kept on coming up to me must of been about the same size as my leg. Slightly, impressed and slightly creeped out.
Then there was another center a bit like the aquarium, but it also had a giant outdoor maze, a huge shop where I ended up buying some Christmas prezzies from, and a kids play area... I may be 18 soon, but no one was around so David and I played on the giant trampolines before Granddad caught us messing around.
Afterwards, we simple went out for a nice dinner and then went back home. The next morning I forced David to come along shopping with me in town, and then to relax on the beach for a while before heading back and just relaxing for a while longer. The next day we went back home, which was Christmas Eve.
Yes, it may of been a short break away from home, but it was nice and relaxing anyway. This year will be my second Christmas with David too; and I`m seriously looking forward to seeing his face when he opens his present, he`s been wanting it for months now and is still hinting at me getting it for him. I`ve hidden it well so I hope he hasn`t found it yet!

I know that the holidays are about having fun, and relaxing; of course I`m going to relax... But I`ve still got work to be getting on with right now! There`s so much I`m behind on, including the three blogs that I have! I`m also working on more Mandala designs and dotted pieces that I can scan in and upload to deviantart and on my art blog... It feels like I`ve got so much planned and so much that I`m looking forward to doing, but I`m not focusing enough on what I can do before all of that.
I`m hoping that after the holidays, everything will be back to normal and I`ll stop stressing out as much as I have done in the past two months.

It may of been freezing,
but the beach was beautiful!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! Or for anyone else, Happy Holidays!
(uploaded 00:09, I can`t get to sleep).


Anime Reviews:   http://melonheadamy-animereviews.blogspot.co.uk
Art Blog:   http://melonheadamy-artblogging.blogspot.co.uk
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Merry Christmas!

I do realize that I`ve uploaded nothing for so, so long! But I`ve been busy arranging my University interviews and I`m hoping that after Christmas everything will be back to normal once more.
So for now... 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

8th December; It`s Been A While!

When Industrial materials
are out, then protect yourself
my children!

It`s been a long time since I`ve updated anything, AND I`M SORRY!
It`s been hectic
It`s been chaos
It`s all going to be explained here.

So here`s a quick update as to what has been going on recently and why I haven`t been uploading anything for such a long time.

Firstly:
For the past two weeks I`ve somehow gained a water infection (that I had no signs or symptoms of) which has spread into both of my kidneys and has put me in some of the most excruciating pain I`ve ever felt. I haven`t been able to move around properly, My sides and back are killing me...  can`t PEE! I need to PEE! but then it was ok because I could PEE again... yeah... It`s been bad.
I did manage to get an emergency appointment at the doctors last week and they`ve given me some antibiotics that are seriously strong, make me dizzy and made me feel somewhat sick. I finish that course of Antibiotics tomorrow and I am feeling a lot better now and I`m finally updating my blogs and my deviantart.

Davids Portrait work
is coming along nicely,
He`s doe quite a few more
since I took this picture
of them.

Secondly:
The deadlines for my final piece, exhibition piece and my Contextual study keeps on getting moved around and changed then moved again and poked a few more times... It`s getting ridiculous now, For the last three weeks I`ve stayed behind until 5pm, and I get to sixth form about 8am; So I`m really tired and I haven`t felt like uploading anything since it can take a while to get images together and writing it all up whilst trying to get more coursework done and applying for UCAS... All a bit too much.
However, last week i actually managed to finish my final piece; well i think It`s finished, the teachers think otherwise at the moment, they said that I need one more layer over the top of what I`ve already done. This piece already has about 16 layers of my work and materials added on to it, so adding another layer would take to long for me to do and would probably ruin the whole thing now.


Thirdly: 
This is the good bit....
Last Tuesday I sent off my UCAS application (only £23), It`s taken me forever to get it sent off and it was supposed to get sent off in the middle of November but more stuff came up and held it back. On the Wednesday I got 5 e-mails from my 5 choices saying that they where reviewing my applications, which made me nervous.
But last Friday I was invited to an Interview at Derby University, the 20th of January at 12:00... I cried, I seriously cried about it and everyone thought that something was really wrong with me; but it was just because I was happy and nervous and yeah.
Then today I checked UCAS track again and my e-mails, I`ve got another interview 6th of January at 12:30 at derby University.
Both interviews are 2-3 hours long and I need to finish my portfolio (which is taking forever), finish off my sketchbook work and get my contextual study needs to be finished off before the Interviews. So of course I`m stressing out and staying behind even later at sixth form and I`m getting seriously tired out by it all.

Hopefully I can update some more and get on top of everything that you may of possibly missed, I am very tired and still under the weather at the moment.
It should all pick up once my portfolio has been finished and my contextual study has been finished, I`m hoping that everything goes well in time for these interviews as I`m ridiculously nervous and panicking already.

Also... MY HAIR IS BRIGHT PURPLE NOW!

Anime Reviews:   http://melonheadamy-animereviews.blogspot.co.uk
Art Blog:   http://melonheadamy-artblogging.blogspot.co.uk
Live Diary:   http://melonheadamy-livediaryblogging.blogspot.co.uk
Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/melonheadamy
Wattpad:    http://www.wattpad.com/user/AmyWatkinson
Instagram:   amy_marshy_melons
DeviantArt:   http://amywatkinson.deviantart.co.uk

9th, November; Quitting My Job and Getting To University.

Too pink for youuu!

9th, November; Quitting My Job and Getting To University. 

So, after working at a dump for about 7 months; I`ve finally handed in my notice and quit B&M!
Over the past few months, working there has been making my mental health illnesses worse; As previous readers must know, I`m a sufferer of depression, Anxiety and Psychosis. About a month or two of working I completely stopped my medication after the Psychiatrist closed my file and I felt much better than I previously did.
However...
Having customers swear at me, My own managers swearing at me, A job where I was not fully trained, working for only £3.89 an hour, Damaging the lower half of my back, not receiving full length breaks, having swollen and puffy feet every weekend and then having other people dump their work on me because they are just soooo desperate to go on their break so I end up being late for mine and then I never get as long and then end up having to do so much other stuff that I end up exhausted...
So even though I thought I would be alright, and I thought that I had perhaps gotten over my depression; I`ve relapsed dramatically and right now I feel like i`m not in a good place. Along with having to finish off my new art project in less than a month, applying for University and having to start putting together my portfolio... I`m feeling rather stressed and I desperately need these two days off at the weekend (which sounds ridiculous), but I need my Amy time right now.
which is also why I haven`t been uploading as much over the past week or so, however, if you do follow me on Deviantart then you`ve probably seen a lot of activity on there lately; That`s because the sixth forms laptops will let you on Deviantart now and I`m able to upload a lot of my work now.

Right now I`m working on more mixed media work and in a few days I should hopefully be able to get a head start on my final piece; But that depends on as to how much experimentation that I can do in the next few days aswell.
Luckily, In year 13 we get a lot of space to ourselves for our exhibition... And this time, I`ve got a lot of work to go in there. The giant board I`m using at the moment is 6ftX5ft-ish (6ft Horizontally and about 5-ish vertically, I`m not too good at wording things).
Then in front of the board that I`m going to be working on, I`m going to have a table; the table is going to be designed so it looks like I`ve been sat working at it and I`ve just left the table to go and do something. Along with the board and the table I`m having a display panel with other small bits of my work on, so at the moment I appear to have y work cut out for me and I`m extremely nervous for this exhibition... Hopefully It will be my best one out of the three so far.

At the moment my UCAS form has been filled out and I`m now just waiting to pay for it to be sent off, hopefully I get some offers back and I`m currently starting to get some work together for my portfolio for the interviews.
So at the moment I`m getting rather busy and I`m running out of time for all of my coursework so I`m gonna put in some extra hours after sixth form and some more doodle and brain storm nights closer to the weekend.
I`m now also accepting fanmail, if that`s what you want to call it. I`ve already had a few come through on Deviantart and facebook... So keep them coming! It`s nice to talk to some of you and if anything just keep on asking me some questions, I`m quite enjoying it at the moment!

Check out my Deviantart For More Of
My Work!

Anime Reviews:   http://melonheadamy-animereviews.blogspot.co.uk
Art Blog:   http://melonheadamy-artblogging.blogspot.co.uk
Live Diary:   http://melonheadamy-livediaryblogging.blogspot.co.uk
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28th, October; Shed2Studios Artist experience!

I did wash this art shirt,
But as you can see nothing has
come out... oops!

28th, October; Shed2Studios Artist experience! 

So I`ve been in contact with a designer and artist from Shed2Studios called Dawn Turner, I`ve wanted to go in and see her for a while or try and get some kind of work done with her. But because of my sixth form and work at the weekends, so for the past two days I`ve been in at the studio doing a bit of work with her and I`ve literally learnt so much from her about the business and about producing some of her work.
(I know i just updated about ink Kings, I was supposed to do that on Friday but haven`t had time).

So on Tuesday I was seriously nervous, I`ve been exchanging E-mails with her for a while now and talking about when i could possibly go in and see her work... So it`s a bit strange going and seeing someone face to face when you`ve actually been speaking for a while.

So she was quite busy when I first went in and I felt quite bad because I kind of stood and watched for a while until she could explain what was happening. It was quite confusing and I can`t remember as to what it was that she was using exactly, but you can use it to create a negative space for glass to melt into; so basically a mold and you can use the bits that you cut out too which imprints in the glass and pushes the shape through.
It`s really interesting, and the designs she was using are cute little snowflakes that she`s turning into glass Christmas decorations. Two different sets are going to two different galleries and they`ll keep around about 50% of the money earned from selling Dawn`s work.
(I can`t remember the names of them, but one is rather fancy and last year they ran out of Dawn`s work in two days!)

Dawn gave me a small tour around the studio, it was a lot larger than i thought and the ceiling itself was quite high meaning that Travis` huge wooden boards could fit in there easily. Travis is an artist who basis his work around wood and is currently working for the boss of Superdry, but he thought that it didn`t sound to impressive when it bloody is.
Ewan is the photography and takes some amazing images but I`ve only met him once and it was only briefly as he was photographing another artists work so she can sell them on, her work alone was amazing aswell.
Tom, now he`s practically a hoarder... His small area is stacked with old random things that people where just going to throw away and he then makes recycled objects out of them or recycled equipment; so it is very interesting but he`s a complete and utter hoarder!
Jeff designs guitars, and is currently off to Berlin (i think), for an exhibition or to sell a few of his guitars over there (if I`ve remembered that correctly). his work is amazing and some of the patterns he can make for the guitars are absolutely stunningly beautiful!

Seeing dawn`s work and a lot of her university work has been a real eye opener for me, I`m now even thinking about choosing a Decorative Art course instead of Art Therapy. Just seeing all of the roots you can go down with Decorative arts has made me think about my future just a little bit more and now I`m even considering asking Dawn for some sort of lesson on glass sculpting or creating these stunning pieces of work.

The candle made it look super
cute, It`s on the shelf in the
living room now!

So today, (Wednesday) dawn showed me some more hands on stuff because on the Tuesday there was a lot of organizing of glass and trying to get some molds ready for the decorations she needs for these galleries.
She`s been trying out these candle holders by using molds for the glass to slouch on, she`s tried doing the frosting on them before putting them in the kiln and she has one that she hadn`t tested out yet... Soooo, lucky Amy got the chance to make her own little christmasy styled candle holder!
I also got to use the sand blaster which was terrifying as the compressor kept on making me jump as it was right behind me, but I`m stupidly proud of myself for making this little glass holder! It`s the first time I`ve ever done anything with glass and probably the only time before I go off to University, I might be slightly cheeky and ask If I could possibly do any extra work with her... Hehe.

I`ll leave the link down here (somewhere), All of their work is really amazing and I`ve loved being there for the past two days, I may also go in on Friday depending on what Dawn is doing and I might ask if their are any other days that I could possibly go in and help out with; It`s worth to at least have a look at their work... it`s strange thinking that there`s all of these different styles under one roof and they all chip in and help each other out quite a bit, very interesting.
So here`s the link to their website: http://www.shed2.co.uk
Here`s the link to their faceboook page: https://www.facebook.com/shed2studios/?fref=ts

I got these amazing high waisted
jeans from ebay cause H&M`s
website wasn`t working... I prefer these! 

Like always, go and take a look at all of the other blogs and ways to get in touch with me and my deviantart account is being updated very regularly at the moment aswell!

Anime Reviews:   http://melonheadamy-animereviews.blogspot.co.uk

Art Blog:   http://melonheadamy-artblogging.blogspot.co.uk
Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/melonheadamy
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27th, October; Ink Kings Work Experience Week.

These new leggings
though :3

27th, October; Ink Kings Work Experience Week.

So last Tuesday I began a week of work experience, well four days of work experience at a local Tattoo Parlor called Ink Kings... It was amazing!

Because I`m not 18 yet, I couldn`t really do much... I couldn`t be near the tattooists when they where tattooing and I wasn`t aloud past a certain point when there was tattooing aswell. So it was a little bit frustrating, and I might go back there when I`m actually 18 so I can observe the tattooing process and help them set up.

so for my four days there I was mainly doing quite a bit of receptionist work, to be honest I did feel quite useless for the first day of being there. There wasn`t much that I could do apart from answer the phone and chat away to the customers whilst they where waiting.

Steve, Tony and Maria where amazingly friendly and helped me out quite a bit for the week that i was there.

Tony is the owner of Ink Kings:
The work he mainly does is just with black ink, he`s had years and years of experience and can even tattoo without using the stencils.
This is one of the latest images that has been uploaded onto their facebook page (I`ll put the link to it at the end).
His work is amazing, and he keeps the study unbelievably clean, unless he`s had porridge... then you`ll find that everywhere in the kitchen earlier and dried bits in the bowls that he`s left out... It`s gross, I had to clean all of the bowls on my first day there and he seriously loves his porridge at lunchtime.
he really helped me out with my own work, he told me that when It`s quite I can bring in stuff to draw and he gave me some really good tips and advice on how to improve those dotted drawings that I`ve been practicing.

I basically just bugged Steve for the week:
Steve does a bit of everything, the picture that I got from the facebook page is two watercolor butterflies, I actually saw him tattoo another watercolor design whilst I was there and it looked stunning!
So when I`m 18, I`m hopefully going to go there to get my very first tattoo; I`m definitely going to Ask Tony to do it though, after winding Steve up that much I think he`ll just make it hurt more than usual on purpose.
Steve is really funny, but he doesn`t have a manlier beard than Tony... However, he does have a really cool motorbike.



Unfortunately i only got to see Maria for two days:
Her boyfriend was Ill so she wasn`t in for most of the week, as she had to babysit him for a while.
She specializes in realism work and this is one of the pieces that she did whilst I was there on the Friday. If I do have any flower tattoos at all in my life, then f*ck anywhere else I`m going to Maria!

Here`s the ink kings facebook page link:
https://www.facebook.com/InkKingsStudios?fref=ts



You can see the majority of their work on there, and people usually send in what they want tattooing to them over facebook, but here`s the link to their official webpage: http://www.ink-kings.com

I seriously enjoyed my week there, and I want to go back when i`m 18 to hopefully observe then tattooing this time. I`ve never had a good week doing work experience and last time i even got rejected, probably 11 times; So the fact that I got this placement with only a months notice was pretty good for me. If anything they guys there are at the studio and some of the funny and welcoming customers we had are what made my week better. Sure, I couldn`t do much cause I`m not 18 but the week for me was amazing and I really enjoyed.
I did get a free T-Shirt aswell, I offered to pay for it but Tony let me have it... But hey, A FREE SHIRT!

I`ve taken their advice with these
drawings, their starting to look
better. 

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