Child of the forest (Practice) Bodyart

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 This piece is inspired by warrior anime art & colour pallets.

Determination

A couple of my really close friends told me that I need to start posting up on my blog again, so here I am!
These past couple of months have been such a whirlwind I don't know where to start.

Last time I posted I was still traveling around the UK.
After the UK I ended up going to visit my Uncle in France & one of my Best friends Alina in Austria! Alina and I ended up going on a road trip for a couple of days to Venice. It was so beautiful and a definite must see if you are going to Europe.

 

After this I arrived back in the UK and met up with my Partner at Heathrow airport. We travelled for 2 weeks around Somerset & London to show him where I grew up. He then flew back with me on the long 27 hour flight back to NZ.

Now I am back in NZ, trying to sort my life out. Figuring out what I want to do next is hard...I have a couple of ideas where I want it to go. However I have realised that I try to control to much, so I am trying to let go and see where the wheel of time takes me.



 

The Melancholy Rhino

Here are some of the photos from a recent photo-shoot I did with an amazing Photographer Paul Roylance.

Thanks to Julie Dodd for being the other model!

 

Easy 1950's Makeup Look.

Just made this video for fun :)

 

EXETER

Exeter!!!

Beautiful place. So good to catch up with my friend Eleanor!

Must sees....

*Exeter Cathedral
*Royal albert memorial museum
*Exeter quayside

 

 

West bay

My Mums best friend Trudy and her husband Warren, kindly took me out for the day to Westbay.

This beautiful fishing village was the filming location for the TV series Broadchurch! We went and had an English Breakfast at the Harbour Café, and then I braved it out to the ocean to touch the water!

 

It is also known as the Jurassic cost, as lots of people find fossils within the rocks.

There is also a lot of crab fishing that goes on and is usually a great family day out.  

 

It was absolutely amazing, even though it was raining!

 

Definitely a must see!

 

AND then we popped into the River Cottage Deli and Canteen in Axminster, Devon. Owned and created by a very amazing Chef that my family look up to. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. You have probably heard of him by his telle program 'The River Cottage'. And if you have not, you really have to look it up. 

Creator of all things sustainable and organic!

 

Here is the link to the website.

https://www.rivercottage.net/

 

The RIVER COTTAGE DELLI and CANTEEN

 

Really bad frumpy photo of me. Obviously didn't care this day :)

 

Thanks for reading

 

xx

 

Makeup - Self esteem & true beauty

MAKEUP IS ART    So I will just paint myself like a picture instead of a person?

I cannot retrace the moment when I decided to go into beauty. I think it was because I was sick and tired of not knowing what was going on with my face or my style.
Everyone else seemed to be comfortable in their own skin. Why am I still so awkward?

My mum never wore makeup, only the occasional blue eyeliner on a night out. But she has always had such natural beauty that it just looked horrible when she wore it. She said to me that the only time she wore makeup was on her wedding day and my dad didn't like because it just wasn't her and he wanted to marry the girl he fell in love with.

I am in an inner fight with myself at the moment with my feelings on makeup and the beauty industry.

Does wearing makeup truly make us feel better about ourselves? Or is it just a mask we wear as protection from judgement by others?

I look at myself in photographs when I don't have makeup on and when I do. I do personally think that I look better with makeup on. I don't want to feel this way. I want to feel comfortable with looking in the mirror at what I see without the mask.

As a makeup artist I constantly get this with clients, 'Excuse me...I have really bad acne...can you cover it up?' or 'Sorry I want to be more tanned, can you please put some bronzer on me?'

My feeling is, before you experiment with makeup, you need to feel comfortable with your true self. If you have acne....go to a dermatologist and get professional help (don't cover it up with crap!). Eat properly, do exercise, sleep!! Become the best version of yourself.

Then you can experiment. I agree with the term 'Makeup is art'. You can create different styles. change up your personality, match your outfits with your makeup....There is no limit!

Yes there is! The limit is when you become dependant. Its an addiction. 'Whatever I'm not addicted, you may say.... I just always need to go out with a little bit of mascara, foundation and concealer...O and of course eyebrows! Must not forget eyebrows!'.

Makeup is Character creation, that is why it is art, and is always seen in fashion and TV. Are we characters, or real people?


MAKEUP IN THE WORK PLACE.
This is feminism. Why should women be pressured to wear makeup in the work place to look professional? Men don't...So why should we? Obviously dress nice and be well groomed, but a full face of makeup required? Its not necessary!

MINERAL MAKEUP is the way to go!!

Mineral makeup I feel is the best option for a daily subtle enhancement. Some people may not feel like they are not blessed with this 'natural beauty' and would like to accentuate their best features.
This is me. Mineral makeup does not clog your pores and create more acne.

Warnings: Careful with the fakes, lots of brands are putting Mineral in their titles because it is a selling strategy. Bare minerals for example has been known to have an ingredient called Bismuth Oxychloride that has been creating bad reactions to the skin. This is an article on Bare minerals.   
http://www.livestrong.com/article/551797-allergies-to-bare-escentuals/

And this is a link to a recommended Organic Mineral Makeup Brand Originating from Australia.
http://www.miessence.com/shop/en/category/4/cosmetics

A night out and a special occasion I feel should be the only exception for spicing it up and creating different looks! Then its special, you feel like its a treat. Your creating this look because you want to not because you have to!

Thanks for reading if you got this far!

This is my opinion, what is yours?:)

xxxx <3

  

Racism in New Zealand

If you don't like to happily debate or discuss deeper issues then don't read any more.:)

<3

This is just my opinion and experiences.
And only between Pakeha (White Kiwis) and Maori.

---------
Growing up in the UK was amazing. My mum and dad where both into Motorbikes from a very young age so I got brought up  in a great community of their friends. They both were not close with their parents, so this community was basically my extended family.

I went to very classic English schools mostly beginning with St... where in primary school you learn the lords prayer & Maypole dancing was a big event!

There was a community. There was a Spa shop up the road where you would have everything! And whilst walking up the road you would have to at least stop and talk to 3 people.

When I was 10, my mum and dad took us on holiday to New Zealand to see my Auntie who had immigrated over 2 years prior. It was amazing! Beautiful sunny weather, lots of beaches....totally different culture to our simple country bumpkin, pub going lifestyle.

We came back over to England feeling excited and hopeful. New Zealand would be an amazing place to move to. Right?

Well 2 years later, my dad found a job as a Stone Mason in Whangarei NZ. Of course as a father you want to provide for your family. So seeing how much my Auntie's husband was succeeding in his job in New Zealand and how much England was changing, he thought that it would be a better and easier place to live.

However My uncle is a business man, my dad is a builder. My Auntie's family are in the Mormon Church, and we are not. They live in Auckland, we moved to Whangarei. SO it did not go the way we hoped.

Anyway we moved to NZ when I had just been at secondary school for 4 months. I had made some really good friends and had just started to like my new school. When yaaay I have to move to New Zealand and go back into Intermediate. WHERE it was pretty much like a middle way from Primary to High school, where you learn nothing and pretty much just do shit loads of sport.

As you may be guessing, I hated it. And I was really shy. Also, as I came from a very country town in England, the vast majority of people at my school were white. I think there was only about 3 people at my school who were black or Indian, and were a lot older so I wasn't friends with them.
So, a really white kid who was really shy who had what non English people would classify as a 'posh' accent (which it was not) + A new School where most of the people were Maori and Geography isn't even a topic. I didn't get a long so well.

Only one girl spoke to me the whole of my first day. And my teacher had me stand up in front of the class and give a speech on where I come from and who I am. What sane teacher does that!!!
In said speech all that came out was, 'HI I'm Hannah Bradley, I'm from Glastonbury England and I have a big family and have Jamaican cousins(true fact)'. JUST so they new I liked black people and a wasn't racist. What an idiot.  I told my now kiwi friends that's what I did, and they just started crying with laughter.

In NZ they are all so comfortable with saying 'that white chick' or that Black fella over there' that It just wasn't an issue. Which was SO hard for me to do as where I come from & in America, if you say anything regarding black people in that sort of way, it would be really bad and racist that you would be shunned for saying such a thing.

However Racism is a very big problem in New Zealand, and was the hardest to understand. Not a lot of outsiders would think this of New Zealand. But it is.

My own experience was that Kiwi's have a nickname for British people, 'Pommy'. So my nick name at school for a couple of years was Pom Pom. Said in a mocking way at first and then a nice way when I became a normal part of their life, and they didn't think of me as different any more.
There are Major class distinctions. Mostly between the Maori and whites. For example....
When I was at school it seemed to me that all of the Maori people lived in a normal home like me. And all of the white people seemed to have boats and batches and surf boards and ski's....the list goes on.

I found myself gravitating towards the Maori people as a found I resonated more with them. They are more family orientated and made do with what they had. As where I come from in England it was exactly the same. We never had beaches, we never had batches... Our holidays where going camping in the cold weather in the hills by a river, (love). So as I gravitated towards this society, I felt the judgement from the other. I literally found myself being the only white person at a party because all of my white friends where to nervous to go. Even one of my friends family members said to him when I left 'that was the coolest white chick I have met'. This is so wrong. Because its reality, everyone is nervous to hang out with each other. Especially the older generation.

A constant phrase that people said to me was. 'your such a horey Maori', even the Maori saying it to me....but then the opposite to one of my Maori friends 'your so white'.Why do they put themselves down I keep asking myself. Its just how the vast majority of society thinks of them. This is wrong.

The Maori people were not allowed to speak their own language for a long period of time and were treated really badly. Hence why there are now loads of Maori trying all their mite to be classified as a separate people.

Is this right or wrong? It is neither.

They have their own culture and language. This is beautiful and must be preserved.

Then It gets controversial....

They have their own party. They have their own flag. They have their own land. They are fighting for water rights. They get granted more money.

Yet they want to be equal and treated with the same respect by society?

Everyone else are jealous and infuriated that we work the same amount but get granted or given less because we are not Maori.

Obviously this is not everyone. But it is an undercurrent in the New Zealand system that people should be aware of when moving. All I can say is that don't be scared and show the system that there needs to be a change. And no favouritism.

I would love to hear your opinion or experiences.
xxx


     

Newark park

These two days I have been catching up with a childhood friend who we figured out I hadn't seen in 8 years!

I stayed at theirs for two nights, which was in an absolutely beautiful converted garage. 

Luckily they both had the day off on Wednesday, so they took me out to this amazing Tudor/Georgian period estate and garden called Newark park. The house was great, because you could see the difference of the old house which was Tudor and the new Georgian period extension! Stunning!

The estates wood was covered in wild garlic and daffodils, unfortunately we were to early on in the spring for all of the blue bells to bloom, so we are hoping to come back in may to see the woods in full blossom!

That night we also went to 'Wagamama's' as they wanted to make me feel at home and have Japanese food. I was very impressed!