I am a lonely painter, I live in a box of paints

I was determined do something a bit different in London yesterday, as I've fallen into the habit of visiting the same haunts every time I go which is getting a bit predictable. I felt like going to a gallery and picked the Tate Britain, which I didn't have very high hopes for as I found the National Gallery so incredibly dull the last time I was there, but the Tate was incredible! I loved it! They had so many famous paintings that I was really excited to see in real life, like Ophelia, and my favorite painting The Doctor which I first saw in a gallery but could never remember which to see it again. And now I know it was this one!

I've been struggling so much with my illustration work this past year and it just felt really special to feel so excited by art again, and I got some books I'm really excited about in the gift shop too. One is general advice for artists, the other is about sketchbook practice, both are no doubt full of stuff I already know but need reminding of just the same. They felt really special in my hands too, like I was supposed to find them and I'm excited about what I might learn from them.

I also saw Frozen, and it's the most I've enjoyed a show in a long time, I just felt really engaged with it. I love this show and have seen it several times now (including on Broadway), and I love it just as much if not more every time. It was the same cast as usual, with the exception of Hans who was played by the cover who was wonderful!! My biggest and really only complaint with the musical is how Hans is made out to be this plotting villain throughout, whereas this actor played him much more earnestly like he is in the movie, so I was thrilled with that (Hans is my favorite character, and I have a whole essay explaining why) His timing in the reveal scene was also so much better - he actually paused between leaning in to kiss Anna and dropping the "if only there was someone who loved you" and let that sit for a moment instead of just rushing through his lines as fast as he can 🙃 Definitely the best Hans!

Vampires will never hurt you

I think Whitby might be one of my very favorite places in the whole world. It's so beautiful and just has a vibe unlike any place I've ever been, although I admit I don't know how much of that is the Dracula stuff because I love vampires. It's a really old seaside town in Yorkshire, England, and was mostly known for it's fishing. Then Bram Stoker came along and decided that the crumbling Abbey on top of the cliff would be a great setting for a little vampire book he was writing, and ever since the town has been associated with Dracula. And I don't know if it is just the rich history of the place, but somehow it manages to do it with class instead of going the tacky route and it gives it a real atmosphere. It's easy to imagine vampires wandering the cobbled streets among the tourists.

Whitby is also famous for it's jet gemstones, which is black and only adds to the town's goth vibes. My parents used to own a gemstone shop when I was a teenager and I'd work there on weekends, and ever since then I've always been inexplicably drawn to jet. It's really a very boring stone to look at compared to the magnificence of something like opal or even bright shards of amethyst, but there's just something about it that calls me. It washes up on the beach here (although it's kind of hard to find because everyone is out treasure hunting) and the streets are full of little locally owned jewelers selling their hand crafted designs. This was my third time I've ever been to Whitby, and I buy myself a little something each time I come. I have a celtic design necklace, a ring, and this time I decided to go big and treated myself to a pendant that I felt really symbolizes the town.

Before Dracula Whitby was known for it's fishing heritage. You can see St Mary's Church on top of the cliff in the background, and the beach where Dracula's ship washed ashore.






Climbing the 199 steps up to the church and Abbey





I'd never been inside the Abbey before, and it was a lot bigger than I was expecting! It's a hundreds of years old ruin so obviously there's not much, but it's still really impressive to look around. It was founded in 657 AD, until it was raided by Danish invaders in 867 AD and left to ruin for 200 years. It was rebuilt as a Benedictine Abbey in the 1220s, until it was destroyed in 1540 due to the Protestant reforms under Henry VIII. It then sustained further damage due to German shell attacks during WWI.

The gift shop is predominantly Dracula related, and I struggled not to buy a few of those beautiful books! I couldn't resist a few bits though.


Time to look at every single black stone on the beach just in case. I did manage to find a few chunks of jet though!

Where do the clouds disappear When they go rolling by?

Shut up and let me see your jazz hands

There's this leather jacket on the My Chemical Romance webstore that I've been umming and ahhing over for the longest time. I couldn't decide just how much I liked it (and I hadn't registered the price tag!) but as I wanted to order some stuff anyway I figured I'd finally get it. Until I did see the price, anyway! I don't know about you, but when I make my mind up that I want something it's difficult to convince myself otherwise so I started to form a plan. I liked the jacket, but to be honest I'd kind of remembered it differently and preferred my imaginary version to what was actually available, so surely it couldn't be that hard to just thrift a jacket and paint on it myself, right?

I tried really hard to thrift a jacket. I wanted this to be long lasting, so I was hoping I might even be able to thrift a real leather one. I know, dream big, but I traveled to three different towns and couldn't even find a fake one, so ended up just buying a faux leather jacket brand new as I couldn't wait anymore. I bought proper leather paint, as although there's a ton of tutorials out there telling you to just use artists acrylics, as an artist who uses acrylics I really don't recommend this. If you don't mind it cracking and peeling off after a few wears then fine, go ahead, but if you want it to last just buy the proper stuff. I went with Angelus which I'd used before to paint a pair of shoes and knew it held up well, and went with silver and pewter to mirror the design of the original jacket.

I spent a long time figuring out the design, I even spent time analyzing the serif font, which is called 'Blacker' by the way and available as a free trial on DAfont (not sponsored, just hope I can help out another fan and put this weirdly niche knowledge to good use!) I also traced over the newer sigils logo which is what I convinced myself the jacket design actually was for a while. I know the design was supposed to read like a tombstone and now it doesn't, but I still prefer it. I also drew up a version where the text circled the logo entirely but it looked too cluttered and made it difficult to read, and I just liked this more.

I spent a while printing it out in various sizes, then I went around all of the design with an exacto knife to create a stencil. I then decided the paper was too flimsy and covered it in sticky tape before cutting everything out again, before trialing the stencil on a scrap piece of paper. I was really worried about the paint bleeding under the stencil and making a mess. I tried both painting and dabbing with various sized paintbrushes, and then found this kids kit that had some sponges on sticks which turned out to be the best! I did a single light layer of this, and traced around the sigils with a white gel pen so I could paint the rest by hand once I knew where everything went.

The stencil had bled on a couple of letters (you can really see on the first M) and I was panicking because I didn't want to have to go around the letters with black paint that might not be an exact match to the jacket and make the whole thing look a bit crap and amateur. Google told me to use acetone to lift it but I didn't want to risk ruining the faux leather, so I used isopropyl alcohol and it took some rubbing but it worked!

I took this photo because I thought I'd finished and started to clear up, but when I moved the jacket away from my brightly lit desk and hung it over my chair I realized how patchy it looked. I'd wanted it to look 'distressed' like the inspiration jacket design, but there's a difference between 'distressed' and 'bad paint job' so I went over the whole thing again. You can see the difference with the actual finished version below and I think you'll agree it was worth it.

I'm really proud of how it came out, and I think I like the jacket even more because I made it! Most alt cultures are built on a history of DIY, so doing stuff like this always feels way more satisfying than "mall bought". It also sent me way back, as I remembered when I was a teenager and couldn't afford band shirts so I'd painstakingly trace the various logos of whoever was my current fav onto plain tshirts with Tipp-Ex and Sharpies. It really didn't look good, but I guess it gave me some good practice!

Leaves are fallin' down on the beautiful ground

I've been meaning to go out and take some photos of autumn for a while, but it seemed like the trees didn't feel orange enough until all of a sudden they were. I love autumn. I love wandering outside with all of the smells, all of the colors, and the air just feels different. There's something so genuinely magical about it all.