Friday 30 October 2015

Vampire Kiss

This old poem was inspired by Dracula, the recently drawn accompanying picture is inspired by Edward and Bella from Twilight.



Monday 12 October 2015

Making friends with YouTube

I've been wondering what to do about my old YouTube account for a while, I've been adding videos to it, on and off, since 2008. It's been a bit hit and miss over the years, but I thought, on the whole, it's worth keeping. My teenage daughter's very keen on YouTube, too keen probably, but I felt there is more I could be getting out of the service so I decided to adopt a new strategy.

I had a few videos I wanted to upload, a couple of old animations, a more recent montage of old ALF pictures and an idea for a new video. I uploaded my old videos and thought I would have a go at the new idea.

The new idea is The Antique Junk Shop, which is a montage of new pictures I have drawn, inspired by one of my poems and accompanied by one of my songs. The new video has been created using the new Movie Maker, I preferred the old one, but have a new computer, so now have the new Movie Maker as well, I'm still quite pleased with the result. After uploading my videos, I thought more deeply about what to do.

My old YouTube account has always been for uploading my 'ALF Pictures' videos, it's its raison d'etre, but I wanted somewhere I could go to search what other people are doing and keep track of that rather than somewhere I go to upload my own efforts. So I came up with the idea of having two accounts.

My old account, LornaJHart, is still for uploading my videos, when I feel the need, I think of it as my 'experimental' account. My new accout, Amilo Finn, is where I am mostly going to collect playlists of other people's videos that I find inspiring, I think of it as my 'inspirational' account. To keep them linked AmiloFinn has subscribed to LornaJHart and vice versa.

While I was at it I also added The Antique Junk Shop to my Vimeo channel. The LornaJHart channel and my Vimeo channel are listed on the side links of my blog and the new AmiloFinn YouTube channel is here. I have 'fave ' playlists on both my YouTube accounts which I hope people will enjoy.

Sunday 11 October 2015

Wild Night

'Wild Night' is a description of the sort of nocturnal disturbances I see in October. In the ALF Creations 'Something More' poetry book the poem is set against Amy's windy and rainy pictures.


Sunday 4 October 2015

Shadow Magazine


Shadow magazine lasted for four proper issues and a holiday special. I produced the magazines when I was about eleven and had just started at secondary school. The magazine was inspired by the girls' magazines I used to love at the time, particularly Jinty, Spellbound and especially Misty.

In the spring edition there was a cartoon mouse called Bernie, stories about cats and brothers, a feature on the zodiac, adverts for James Bond and Narnia and recipes. The summer issue featured a cartoon dog called Andy, an advert for Watership Down, a feature on special occasions, an agony aunt letters page, jokes and character descriptions.

In the Autumn there was a cartoon dog called Sammy Sniff, an advert for pyjamas, a short story called 'Girl on the pier' and a feature on the meaning of the months of the year. The Winter issue featured more Sammy Sniff, stories called 'The Ideal Present' and 'The Snowman' and a feature on owls.

The holiday special had more on the zodiac, adverts for boutique tissues and Miss Bianca, riddles and pictures of wildlife and tattoos. There were stories called Friend, After the Rain and Last Bus Home. 'Last Bus Home' I particularly enjoyed re-reading after all these years.