Wimbledon Theatre Degree Show

Way back, in mid-June, I went off to where I started my art training, Wimbledon College of Art, to have a poke around the Theatre School Degree Show. I've always found it so inspiring to see how people can pluck ideas from their imaginations, bring them to life and absorb the viewer into their world.

I especially loved the Technical Arts department (modelling, casting, prop-making, prosthetics etc) because it was complete escapism - the great thing about sculpture is that it occupies your space (or you occupy ITS space) and becomes part of your world. There were a few standouts for me:

Adelaide Filippe:

I loved all the suggestions of story behind this! Why on earth is this dude made of teeth and people's hands?! There is a tantalisingly in-progress website suggesting there are plans for novels and OMG I would absolutely read them. This sculpture just emanates EPIC DARK FANTASY which is right down my alley!

Emily Pooley:

Emily created a life-size version of how Anne Boleyn might have looked. Every last detail was perfectly thought-out, including the infamous sixth finger and scented 'Pomander Beads' - it was a multi-sensual experience and shockingly realistic. Find more of her amazing work at her website.

Jackson Gilkes-Fairman

I loved the use of scale and texture in Jackson's work. People who know me in Actual Real Life will also know that I'm a sucker for horse-beasts and grungyness so this may as well have been made for me!

However even my advanced ninja internet stalking skills were thwarted when I tried to find more information or illustrations.. he has basically NO internet presence that I could find, which makes me very sad. I will keep trying however.

Michelle Lewry

 
 

I've never been so emotionally affected by a sculpture before - the expression on the man's face, the sense of nameless fear, even the viewer's position as an onlooker, all contributed to a moving, upsetting, thought-provoking piece.

There was SO much good stuff, this post could go on for ages. I'm definitely going back next year, and would recommend everyone in the London area doing the same!

Harriet & the Hair Fairy Illustrations

You may remember my post about the book covers I designed for my final university project, illustrating my decidedly odd story about Harriet, a little girl with no hair, and the Hair Fairy, who goes on a series of ill-fated adventures in order to clothe Harriet's head.

Well, here are some illustrations to go with the story; some character sketches, a concept for a scene and an oil painting!

The Night Mare, who donates some of her tail strands that keep growing and growing;

The Hair Fairy

Harriet with a knotted clump of fine golden hair

An oil painting! I'd been wanting to do one for ages, I prefer the original pencil sketch but I think that's just because I'm so out of practise with oils. I love 'em :D

Treasure!

I recently received a fairly unassuming brown jiffy envelope through my letter box. It had a little drawing of a lighthouse on the bottom corner and a hand-scribbled note saying:

'Sorry it took so long to get this to you - I was off on holiday collecting more of these!'

What was in the package? SEA GLASS! Yes, I am getting excited about fragments of glass that have spent the last couple of centuries getting smoothed and tumbled by surf. Most random eBay purchase of the century?? It might also be the prettiest!

So what am I going to do with all this glass, you may be wondering. The other bemused members of my household certainly did, quite vocally.
And I do have plans! They are secret might-fail-miserably plans so you'll have to watch this space to find out :P

I drew a lady

I got completely enchanted by this girl as soon as I saw her on The Model Scouts (Irelands much, MUCH, better version of America's Next Top Model (yes, I watch all that crud)). Her name's Tabea and she actually won it in the end, proving that I have impeccable taste, of course. *cough*

There is some angsty 'OMG IM SO UNINSPIRED' whining to the sound of a tiny violin behind the jump :D give me your wisdom (or a good shake of the shoulders)!!!

Introducing Clarence

I think it's about time I gave some blog-lovin' to my most recent forray into sculpture, affectionately named Clarence, who I spent hours and hours of my life painstakingly creating, and whom I love like a child. Unfortunately, he gets looks of horror and disgust from Normal People, perhaps it is because he looks like this:

I feel sad for him because noone else thinks he is adorable. :(

Anyway, his purpose was to support the project I developed in response to the final (and scariest) part of my Illustration degree: the exam brief. Inspired by P. T. Barnum, I made a hoax blog where I pretended (using illustrations, embarrassingly bad video diaries and doctored photos) to discover a colony of strangely humanoid pixie-rodent-things. Whatever Clarence is, that's what I 'discovered'.

I had enough foresight to take a bunch of photos as I progressed, so continue reading to find out how I got from sketch to thing-in-a-jar.

I recommend clicking on this to see it beeeg because it was done in the days when I had bizarre amounts of patience for minute detailing.. (AS level..)

This next one was done more recently.. and is much less.. accomplished. But more compelling, perhaps..?

Harriet book jackets

So! That thing I promised would be uploaded the next day a shameful amount of time ago is finally photographed and ready to go. It's my final project for the University of Brighton: book jackets for my children's story 'Harriet and the Hair Fairy'.

I wanted to step away from my standard fare of spidery drawings, I felt like I'd got a bit trapped in this one discipline and it was stifling my creativity. So I decided to delve again into the primary-school world of Making Things With My Hands and got very messy, did lots of things wrong, changed my plans a few times, and ended up with something I actually quite liked! (SHOCK AND HORROR)

I wanted to explore the relationship between the planes of the 3D puppets and the 2D cover.. I guess I was trying to do something a bit meta, that whole 'look at the photographic image becoming a flat drawing' type thing.

The story is about a bald girl (Harriet), who is visited by the 'hair fairy', a little old lady who flits around with a purse full of hair 'seeds', ready to plant into the heads of newborn babies. Since Harriet appears to have been forgotten, the Hair Fairy decides to enthrone her head with all kinds of fantastic hairy solutions which all, of course, somehow manage to go disasterously wrong.
I chose to depict three of these on the covers; golden hair that's so fine it gets into an impossible tangle, hair so long it becomes unmanageable and a head of beautiful beautiful flowers that bees find irresistable.
It's a bit of weird story, I know. I'm not expecting it to get published or anything. >_>

I'll post the digital versions, so you can see the covers in more detail.