Titles Are So Irritating and Stunt My Thought Process

…so I’m not giving this post one.
I just want to blabber about things and not make sense today. I am sick with a cold-ish thing that requires me to be constantly making and drinking tea (don’t worry, I’ve got some decaffeinated English Breakfast; it’s all good) and have a tissue box within in three feet of me AT ALL TIMES- WAIT WAIT I HAVE TO SNEEZE I HAVE TO SNEEZE

Nope. Nope. It went away- ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
I hear this in the other room, where my siblings are chomping on popcorn and imitating Hermione in English accents.

“Viktor, I love you! Viktor, I do! When we’re apart-”
Erm, yeah, anyway. Yesterday I had an orchestra concert which was GOOD and everyone was wonderful, except when I was fake-playing, but we don’t really have to talk about that, right? Good. We closed the performance with a Pirates of the Caribbean medley, which was easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy and a jumble of jollity to play. Before that piece, there was this gift basket drawing and award giving thing, which is great and all, but it was SO LONG and UNBELIEVABLY ANTI-CLIMATIC and, looking back on it, LAUGHABLY DULL. I mean, congratulations to the finalists, and graduating seniors, and concerto people, and the gift basket winners, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, SO, SO DULL.
*sniffles* *blows nose* *makes tea*
Whew. Lately I have been drawing a lot, and I WOULD take pictures, but– actually. I will. Right now.
THIS IS GOING TO TAKE FOREVERRRRRR.
Okay, done.
Yes, I know, the shadows around the drawings are utter rubbish. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t figure out our scanner…

This one was inspired by the song Mariella by Kate Nash, which I listened to on repeat while drawing it. Brilliant song, by the way. I featured in my First Loony Tunes Ever post.

This one is all blushing and cute and straight hair and eyelashes and stuff. Aw. (Not my favorite, but nor horrible.)

Favorite one. I drew this one while giving a spelling test to my sister (ha, homeschooling). Her hair is all curly-wavy-cowlick-y, and she has this big hair bow, and a cute collar, and a chain around her neck that begs to suggest a locket- basically, she’s my favorite and stems from the recent obsession I have with retro fashion and girlhood.

Hahahahahahahahahaha. Evil balloon and a cartoonish girl with braids holding her breath, eyes poppin’.

The noooooooooooose.

I like to think she’s contemplating her existence with her expressionless mouth and stony eyes. But she’s probably grinding her teeth at the state of her lusciously abstract main.

A lily that I sketched while JAMMIN’ to the Smiths and Morrissey and my Best of the Girl Groups album. The shadows are SO BAD, I KNOW.
All right, that’s all for my sketchbook.
Also, at my orchestra concert, I left my purse which had my DEAR LITTLE IPOD in it, and when we went back for it at 10:15 at night, the purse was…gone. Luckily, my conductor grabbed it and has mailed it to me today, as our season is now finished and I will no longer ever see him again (*pretends to be sad* *reminds self that conductor is nice enough to return belongings to self*). But…I’m still without my iPod, and that means I’m without my TUNEZ and such for a couple days. Which kind of reeks, but at least it wasn’t stolen by a DESPICABLY EVIL passerby.
And and announcement! I have finally begun my collaboration blog, Seven Up, with six other marvelous girls. This is our very first week and I INVITE (Read: beg) you to check it out! This week’s theme is interviewing one another with KWEST-SHE-AWWWNS just to do a little introductory post. I hope you like the blog, because I will be shamelessly advertising it here forever and ever.
Last, but certainly not least, I wish a happy birthday to my poppy!
Now, I think I’m finished with this post, but soon I will return! Sorry for my absence and lack of videos lately. I vow I’ll make one soon.
Much love,
Ellie (the Dancing Elephant with a Cold-ishy Illness Thing Involving Bacteria, Probably, Definitely)
Edit: New background made of BOW TIES and SPECTACLES! I love it. What about you?

AwesomeLand’s First Installment

Once upon a time, in the depths of a mystical land called by its dwellers, AwesomeLand, there grew a forest. The forest was entirely made up of pine and fir tress in the exactly right shades of teal-ish green-ish blue-ish forest-ishy green. Whimsical woodland creatures frolicked happily through the foliage-covered floors. Rays of yellow sunlight climbed through the gaps in the branches and greeted the ground to help bright wild flowers grow. In AwesomeLand, there was a huge city with tall glass buildings; comically colorful automobiles hummed about like busy bumblebees. The people dashed through the Big City, as it was called, smiling and laughing. Everyone wore the wackiest clothes they could find, and everyone was happy because they were expressing themselves, and no one was jealous and called anybody a hipster because nobody was insecure or hated themselves. The Big City was pretty cool. The Big City would slowly turn into a length of suburbia, where everyone was slightly less cool, and slightly more conservatively gray-wearing, and slightly less everything. This length of suburbia was suitably called The Suburbia of Slightly Less. In The Suburbia of Slightly Less, there were several different places to live. One place had cozy, agelessly endearing, pastel-colored houses with neat trim and drafty windows, where either elderly folks or cute families lived with cute children lived. Another bubble within The Suburbia of Slightly Less Cool had conforming, cookie-cutter houses that all looked the same, but as it was AwesomeLand, the houses were covered in a patchwork pattern of colors and prints that set each apart. Basically, there was the Cute part of The Suburbia of Slightly Less, and then there was the Cuter part with pastel colored houses. Beyond The Suburbia, farms grew crops of fanciful cotton candy and sickeningly sweet candy corn, as well as your prosaic vegetables and grains, but in outrageous, cheerful colors. Barns and quaint farmhouses dotted this beautiful countryside like the puffy clouds in the divinely blue sky. Oak and maple trees that had sprung up decades before grew in clusters, twining with the apple trees as if embracing. Wild grasses covered acres; sunflowers towered.
But how, you ask, does our impeccable hued forest tie in to this pretty little picture? Well, I will tell you. Far off, where the number of farmhouses dwindled, where nature had gone wild and untamed, where no one was thought to live, our very favorite forest grew. There, in that forest, the woodland creatures frolicked. The fairies whispered and sung. The ancient, sprawling trees stretched their arms covered in rough, burlap skin and drank the water hiding in the ground. And a little cottage with stone walls and a thatched roof sat.

Vlog for Blog: The Ellie and Lala Format!

My friend Milana made an fun, scripted video over our Christmas break! Our video is inspired by Charlie McDonnell and Alex Day’s “Alex and Charlie Format.” Thanks for all of your views, I’m sorry I haven’t been posting blog posts, but I’ve been busy with Christmas and this little project!

Vlog for Blog: The Milana and Ellie Format from Ellie Shackelford on Vimeo.

Thanks again!
Love Ellie

Making Collages to Cover the Wall

Right now my mind is a blank page that is refusing to be written on. It is resisting every spark of imagination and every stroke of the match of ideas. I would like to write a blog post right now, I need to, but everything is dead. I try to write with emotion and feeling and jokeyness and IT NO COME.
So, right now, I’ve just finished a different blog post that is not to be published yet, and I think it might be horrible. -sigh-
Hey! I’m going to talk about something else!
Okay, so my walls are made of planks of wood, not plaster, or whatever walls are made of AND I CAN’T THINK KF THE PROPER NAME RIGHT NOW…anyway, they’re made of wood, and I don’t like that because EW WOOD PLANKS OF WOOD GROSSSSS! No, actually I don’t like it because the walls are all not-quite-completely smooth and they look like wood. Or something. So my goal is to cover my entire wall with posters and pictures and STUFF. I think it would probably be my goal whether the walls were wood or not, but whatever, think what you find most pleasing.
So I have this HUUUGE pad of paper that is GORGEOUSLY blank, and SPECTACULAR and I’m going to use it. To cover my wall. I’ve already covered one sheet with quotes and lyrics and writing, but NEED MORE.
One thing I have recently begun doing to contribute to what I will now call the Covering the Wall Fund (Creative with names, I am) is making collages out of magazine and then doodling over them.
Collages are super fun to do, and kind of meditative for me in a sort of throwing-stuff-together-puzzle-solving sort of way. Usually I grab two or three random magazines from a pile without glancing at the covers, and I quickly flip through each, haphazardly tearing entire pages out without studying them very much. If I study a page to long, often I’ll get absorbed in the “Adoarble Baby Shower Gifts!” or “Great Tips for a GORGEOUS Spring Garden!” articles and completely forget I’m trying to do something creative.
A few things to remember while creating collages:

1. Observe how different colors work together. Check out how this peach and that turquoise contrast, and look how cool that shade of red looks with that lavender! That sort of thing, right? Maybe choose one or two colors that you want to focus on in one piece.

2. Subjects can be just as important as colors. Making different components work with eachother can bring life to a work. For example, let’s say you cut out a picture of a fish, and find and umbrella to place over it. Add a cloud over the umbrella, but instead of rain, draw snow flakes piling all over your picture, and doodle a snow man befriending your fish. See?

3. Having to many guidelines for a piece can be really restrictive. I even get stressed out if I create too many rules for myself and can’t follow them because I AM A HERMIONE. If I have a subject I want to base my collage around, I don’t choose a pair of colors too. That’s too many things to follow. If you want to really focus on a subject or color, think of things that connect to that thing, or words you think of when you look at your picture or colors. Even drawing a web chart might help sort your thoughts out. Let’s say I cut out a dog food dish for my subject. What’s something I think of when I hear “dog food”? I think of my mother saying we’re having dog food for dinner. A frying pan, maybe? Keep thinking of stories you’ve heard and try to fit them into your collage.

4. When making a collage, it shouldn’t be hard. If I’m having a hard time thinking of what to add or what subject or colors to choose, I need to take a break, maybe go look at Pintrest or listen to music for a little while. Make some tea. If I force an art or writing project, I never feel as proud of it or as good about what I’ve completed. And then I throw it all away and it’s a waste of time.

5. Go with your instincts. If you think something might look good, try it. Be willing to make mistakes.

And that’s all for now! I’m sure I’ll be seeing you all again soon! So long!
~Ellie