Maidstone parkrun map

As requested by Maidstone parkrun's director Donna I have designed a parkrun map. 

This is similar to my previous circular design (here) but a bit more true to the actual route.

I've also added a few runners in fancy dress. (we love any excuse for fancy dress at Maidstone parkrun).
To find out about your local parkrun visit their website here. 

Last week of Inktober 2016

I made it through Inktober! I've really enjoyed this month, and would definitely recommend the challenge to others.

Encase you missed any of my previous Inktober images

Click here for week 1.

Click here for week 2. 

Click here for week 3.

Now to look back on days 25-31

Day 25 Tired: Science of Sleep (Such a visually interesting film filled with some beautiful animation. This scene below is inside the main characters head, the blinds are eyelids. Yes that does sound a bit wacky, the whole film is quite quirky, and you should watch it!)

Day 26 Box: One Million Dollar Baby

Day 28 Burn: Frankenstein 1931

Day 29 Surprise: The Sixth Sense (I remember being so surprised by the twist the first time I watched this film.)

Day 30 Wreck: Life of Pi (I think this is my favourite this week. I did this in brush and ink. The majority of my images for Inktober have been using ink pens.)

Day 31 Friend: Inside I'm Dancing

Inktober Update Days 18 -24

Here's my Inktober drawings from the last week.

Click here for Week 1

Click here for Week 2

Day 18 Escape: The Shawshank Redemption

Day 19 Flight: Gattaca (Main character longs to travel to space.)

Day 20 Squeeze: Indian Jones, Temple of Doom (Bit of a tight squeeze)

Day 21 Big: 1984 (Big Brother is watching you.)

Day 22: Little: Honey I shrank the kids

Day 23: Slow: Inception. (Slow motion scene.) 

Day 24: One Dozen: Love Actually (The link here is 12 days of Christmas, and I'd already done 12 Monkeys)

Inktober Update Days 10 - 17

Again for those of you who don't follow me on Instagram or Twitter here are my latest Inktober images.

To see days 1- 9 click here.

So I have continued to use the Inktober 2016 official prompts, linking these to a film.

I won't explain the links between these, most are probably obvious, if not try and work out the link.

Day 10 Jump: The Matrix

Day 11 Transport: The Time Machine

Day 12 Worried: The King's Speech

Day 13 Scared: The Stepford Wives

Day 14 Tree: Guardian's of the Galaxy

Day 15 Relax: Pretty Woman

Day 16 Wet: The Faculty (Ok so I will explain this one. If you've never seen The Faculty, the staff and some students are taken over by aliens. These body snatching aliens need a lot of water to survive.)

Day 17 Battle: Fight Club

First week of Inktober 2016

I thought I would share my Inktober progress so far, for those of you who don't follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

Inktober is quite a simple concept, just produce a drawing using some kind of ink, liquid or pen/marker for every day in October.

This is the first time I've done Inktober, and I'm enjoying using it as a way to experiment with different types of ink and techniques. You will notice that all my images don't look exactly the same style, but it's a good challenge to see what's working and what isn't so much.

I'd decided to choose a different film for each image. Then I found out that there was an official Inktober prompt list. So I'm using this list, and picking a film that relates to that in some way. Some have an obvious connection, and some may be a feeling or single scene that link.

Popcorn ready? Here we go.



 Day 1 Fast: Speed

Day 2 Noisy: What Maisie Knew (Chosen because of the arguments, and Masie's rock star Mum)

Day 3 Collect: Wizard of Oz (Heart, Brain, Courage)

Day 4 Hungry: Hunger Games

Day 5 Sad: The Help (The scene where Aibileen get's fired and has to say goodbye breaks my heart)

Day 6 Hidden: Serenity (River reveals her superpowers which are triggered by subliminal messages in a cartoon)

Day 7 Lost: Labyrinth (Sarah can't remember what she's looking for and meets the junk lady who tries to distract her)

Day 8 Rock: Cliffhanger

Day 9 Broken: 12 Monkey's (The world is a bit broken due to a deadly virus.)

I think I'm happiest with The Wizard of Oz, The Hunger Games, and Cliffhanger.

I will post another update next week, but if you can't wait that long I'm uploading them daily to Instagram and Twitter.

If there's a film above that you've never seen that intrigues you, why not check it out.

Bexley parkrun badge

In my last post I shared two images inspired by my local parkrun Maidstone. If you have no idea what parkrun is or you want to see those images you can read that post here. And you can visit parkrun's website here.

As I mentioned I enjoy visiting other parkruns, and I'm hoping to do a series of these. I've done Bexley parkrun a few times as some of my lovely family do Bexley parkrun. It's great to see them and have a catch up, and the Boathouse does a good chocolate covered flapjack that's worth coming back for.

Maidstone parkrun badges

I've been going to parkrun for the past 3 years, and I love it! I can honestly not imagine my Saturday mornings without parkrun. Or in fact my Christmas and New Year mornings (yes we run Christmas and New Year too).

If you haven't heard of parkrun, its a free 5K running event that started in Bushy park in London, and has literally spread across the UK and a number of other Countries as well. Every parkrun I've been to is really welcoming, and anyone can join, so if you're interested visit http://www.parkrun.org.uk/events/events/ to find your local.

Here are two images I've made inspired by my local parkrun at Maidstone. The idea behind these images came from talking to a running friend about "wouldn't it be cool if you could collect running badges". So I decided to have a go at making some. This reminded me of being a Brownie and collecting different badges for different activities.

The first image is Maidstone parkrun badge. This is a kind of map of Maidstone parkrun, showing the key features. That's right there are donkeys! Although they don't do much running. I wanted convey the atmosphere of parkrun and show a sense of community.

The second image is of Allington castle which can be seen on the other side of the river. I wanted to draw this as there's a bit of a 'running' joke at Maidstone parkrun, as people often miss the castle. It's often obscured by trees and I think people are just in the running zone. However I liked the idea of a castle badge for people who spot the castle.

Watch this space for more parkrun badges in the future. I like to do a bit of parkrun touristing, so hopefully there will be more to come.