Birthday.. Meh...

Hi everyone, two days ago (24th March) was my Birthday. This year I can't really say much... I woke up at dawn, opened one present and two cards and went to school. I got a joint present from my mum and My dad and those were the Copic Ciao Markers - 72 B set. I was really happy with what I got and I thanked them both. 

I smiled a lot from all the lovely birthday wishes on Instagram, Facebook and everywhere else. I didn't know that many people knew my birthday lol. So far to be honest I've had quite a dull feeling through out the "Birthday week" mainly because I didn't receive as many cards the previous years and it's kind of sad how occasions can only be remembered by Facebook reminding us and even then all we do is post on their wall and no longer give Birthday cards. 

On Friday I'll be going out with my family to a family dinner to celebrate my birthday and then on Sunday I'll be going to T.G.I Fridays with 6 friends to also enjoy a meal. I'm looking forward to those because I haven't really done anything to mark the occasion. 

There will be a review on the Copic Ciao markers coming up soon and that will be in comparison to the Letraset Promarkers *oooooh suspense*. 

Thanks for reading this little Birthday Update! 

Lauren x

Useful Youtube Tutorial Channels: Beauty and Art

Hi everyone! Here we have the first of my tutorial channels series and I've decided to start off with something a lot of teen girls are interested in and that's beauty. I'll be showing you guys some amazing tutorial channels and some of my personal favourites. You guys already know of Tanya Burr, Zoella, Sprinkle of Glitter, etc (So I won't mention them)

Beauty:

1. Eleventh Gorgeous

Eleventh Gorgeous are two really awesome sisters called Tracy and Stephanie who have almost about everything on their channel lol. Beauty giveaways to product unboxings and tutorials. I love their channel because it's nice and colourful and it's really vibrant. 

2. Lauren Curtis

How awesome? She has my name lol. Lauren Curtis has got you covered! She has every tutorial under the sun and she has hair tutorials as well as beauty stuff, so you guys should really check her out :) 

3. Bethany Mota

Bethany is a teenager living in California who makes vlogs on hair, makeup, fashion and DIY. She makes interesting videos and if you like any of the above then you should like her too

4. May Baby

I absolutely love May Baby's channel. Ideal for teenagers and she has really interesting videos.

Art

1. Mark Crilley

Mark Crilley is an amazing teacher and artist and he'll just teach you so many amazing things. If you think you are rubbish at drawing, he can change your mind because he makes tutorials look so easy.

2. Fsketcher

To all my fashion artists reading this post... Fsketcher is the place to be! I learnt almost like everything I know now from there and I am still learning. Aliyah Uten shows you how to create realistic looking fashion with pen and paper and it's awesome that people don't keep talent bottled up and that they share it and help others or else, how else would anyone learn new skills?

3. Dramatic Parrot

I'm trying to use a variety of art tutorials. Mark Crilley was Manga and realism, Fsketcher was fashion and Dramatic Parrot is what I use for learning how to draw lots of cartoon characters especially disney.
Another good website for learning how to draw a lot of famous cartoon characters is:
www.easydrawingtutorials.com/

Thanks for reading this post, It's only the first and I'm doing it in pretty random sectors. Next will be DIY and Lifestyle. Look out for that post sometime this week.

Lauren x

Recent work with watercolor

Hi everyone, I don't have much experience with watercolor so I'd like as much advice as I can get. I did a watercolor fashion illustration yesterday.

I added hair and I really think I messed it up so I didn't post the finished piece. 

This is also one of my recent illustrations, I used promarkers and pencils. 

Colouring with promarkers: Skin tone and brown hair

Hey guys, this is a highly requested tutorial so I decided to finally go ahead and do it. This did take me a while so I hope all the artists out there learn something :).

For the skin tone I used (in order):

• Blush promarker
• Dusky Pink promarker
• Satin promarker
• Lilac promarker
• and a Faber Castell polychromo, colour: Caput Mortuum. 

For the hair I used

• Any dark brown pencil
• Cinnamon promarker 
• Cocoa promarker 
• Faber Castell polychromo, colour: Weiss White. 

Awesome! Lets start. 

1. Get the basic facial features of a fashin face, doesn't have too look realistic. 

2. When your done, fineline your facial features. If anyones wondering, the lines near the cheeks are cheekbones.

3. Use Blush on the cheeks

4. Make highlights in the areas I have with the colour dusky pink. 

4. Give all the skin a flat layer of one colour, you can do this with any light skin tone for white people. It should however be either ivory or satin, i'm using satin. 

Sorry you're having to tilt your head, my rotating editor was taking ages. 

 5. This isn't compulsory but you can go over some of the dark shadows with lavender.

 6. Go over your shadows with pencil (brown)

Thats the skin done! - Pretty easy right? 

HAIR 

 1. Make shadows with a dark brown pencil. 

2. Cover the hair fully with cinnamon colour 

3. Cover the shadows with cocoa and make some hair strands with brown pencil.

4. Colour the light parts with white pencil.

Thank you guys for reading the post, I hope you found this post helpful. Let me know if you would like some more promarker tutorials below x 

Song of the day is Yemi Alade - Kissing 

February Favourites

Hi world! We've entered March and I am incredibly late with these favourites but oh well! I will be doin my post a bit different to the normal mainstream favourites post, i'm just going to talk about February and you'll pick up on my favourite things.

In February I realized the year is speeding amazingly fast, I had my little brother's birthday and I discovered that I have a toast addiction. I can say February was an easy month, it's not been easy school wise but it's been okay.

I'd tell you my favourite TV show but I don't watch tv however lately i've been interested in a documentary style programme called "Designing Africa" at 9pm on The Africa Channel. I love this show and it inspires me to continue loving african fashion because it's bright bold and hot.

Lately, toast and another T word has been my life. I can eat a minimum of 6 slices in the morning and 9 in the afrternoon/before bed. Do I need help?

Lol, Fashion wise my favourite thing in my wardrobe right now are my leather leggings that only cost me £3 in a Primark sale. They go with everything and look urban.

My favoruite song right now is Lola Rae - Watch my ting go 

Thanks for reading x