The Banshees are born!

All the characters for my I-Stop motion piece on 'Imaginary Beings' are finally finished!

My characters are as follows:

Leader of the Banshees - This creature is the most evil of them all and equally stupid! - It leads the other two Banshees into doing evil and silly things.

Banshee the 2nd and 3rd - These two Banshees are ruled by their leader, and do anything they are told to do!

Shird - Shird is creepy looking but harmless and is friends with Sorse

Sorse - body of a Horse and head of a Sun, This tame creature is warm, friendly and gentle and just wants to fly

Black cat - This silent cat likes to sit and watch in the creepy woods

All the creatures live in the 'Black Woods', The Banshees currently live in the Germanic Temple where they attempt to cast spells.

A room of my own..

I finally managed to clear my spare room out and make it into my own little art room where I can keep all my stuff and things I collect.  I have always wanted my own room where I can just be creative.

It's also nice to get organised and I have sorted all my research files from 1st year into seperate subjects such as Circus, Animals, Masks, Patterns etc so if a brief arises in the future where I need a image of a lion for example, I can just look in the files I have, obviously I hope to build on them and collect images as I go along.

I also love bric-a-brac and charity shops and I tend to buy odd curiosities and things that I find interesting, things that I can use in future projects.

Work in Progress !!!

It's week 4 into the project and already I have been busy making scary Banshees and other weird and wonderful characters, I have also began painting the set for the scenes, creating a tree and painting witch stones!.  I'm really enjoying thid project, despite their being a few challenges with selecting the right materials to make the characters and also ensuring I get the correct measurements for the size and scale of the set.

It is also my very first time trying I-Stop motion which I am thoroughly emjoying too.  Below is a little tester of my first attempt at I-Stop:

It's my character Sorse (body of a horse and the head of a sun, hence the name Sorse!) He is friendly, nice and gentle!

'Dream of a Card Queen'

'Dream of a Card Queen' was a small summer project I did myself over the summer break.

It's about a girl who finds a secret book in a secret box in her back garden when she is a young girl,  The girl read the story a lot but stopped as she got older, the secret box along with the book is forgotten about until she turns into a young woman where strange things happen, she begins to see things or imagine them and her life begins the story within the book.  The story was written by the Card Queen herself who is trapped in a spell and the only way it can be broken is by the person who finds the book!

I had hoped for a better outcome as I was limited to location, props and quality of camera, but I like to see it as a learning curve and experimental play for future projects.  If I had the chance to revisit a project similar to this I would look to source a more suitable location, source better props, build more of a narrative and maybe introduce film.

Below are some of the photographs I took, The setting is at the Card Queens dressing table!

Nikki Farquharson

I stumbled across Nikki Farquharson who is a graphic artist based in London, Illustration is her primary discipline,  I was drawn to her use of patterns and details that she uses throughout her work, and the way that she combines photography with hand drawn illustrations beautifully.  Her work has also been applied to various use in fashion magazines, beauty products and stationary etc.

Nikki's work is a great example of how illustrations can be applied to a variety of media and products across a variety of industries, This is something that my tutor has been discussing with us lately about having the ability to make, paint, print, sow etc as this will open the door to more opportunities when we graduate and progress into the industry.

Originally I mainly worked sketchbook based, that changed for me when we worked on the 'Persona' project where I really started making things and I loved it!, I also would like to learn I-Stop, animation and stitching/print as I like to be versatile and experiment.

Here is some of Nikki Farquharson's fabulous work (source - http://www.nikkifarquharson.com)

One little bird...

I made this bird by cutting up playing cards, This is something I did a lot of in first year and is something I would like to get back to in the future..

Below is the original image and for the second image I have inverted the colour on Photoshop, I prefer the second image.

Bursting with Ideas!

Today has been packed with workshops, building ideas and a 'Project Proposal Crit'.

This morning we were introduced to the Illustrator programme, it really impressed me with what it can do as it's a vector based programme (non pixelated) which means it can create shapes in a precise manner, it's consistant and can be used with Photoshop and other mediums.  This will be a great tool for creating Masks and Faces so I can achive a symmetric look when creating images,  I also liked that I can enlarge images to a giant scale whilst still keeping the image quality.

In the afternoon we paid a visit to the woodwork department where anything 3D can be created from a range of materials using different machinery.  I've chosen the Banshee as my character and I want to use found objects from junk/charity shops and also natural materials such as branches and leaves to give a natural feel to the project.  I really look forward to next week, getting into the workshop and creating strange hybrid Banshees from my findings!.

Today wrapped up with a short 'Project Proposal Crit' where we discussed the character we had decided on and the world that it lived in, the narrative, the challenges, preparation and how we will plan our time in order to meet the project deadline.  It's nice to be more in control of our projects and to have more ownership as we will be working in this way more as we progress through 2nd year and into our final year.

Inspire Me !

I wanted to share a few influences that have always interested and inspired me creatively..
I love playing cards, I love the limited colour pallet used of mainly black, white and red, I like how they are symmetrical, I love the style and feel of the Illustrations on them, I have already noticed that a lot of my work has been done using a limited colour pallet of red, black and white. I have started to collect them too!

Masks are mysterious, sinnister, playful, creepy, fun and surreall, they interest me a lot!
Dali has intrigued me ever since the Art Teacher at Secondary School showed us his work, I loved it and I love all things Surreal.

I also like a variety of patterns to use to create characters, buildings and objects, I experimented alot on the ‘Sense of Place’ project for Sinbad with Henna and Indian patterns, symbols also interest me which I have looked at quite recently for ‘Imaginary Beings’ project

Beautiful Beaumaris

Here is a small selection of photographs I took when I went to Beaumaris, Wales over the summer break.  Beaumaris is a beautiful little seaside village that is packed with historical treasures and colourful houses!

During my stay I visited Beaumaris Castle, Penmon Priory and Beaumaris Prison, In particular Beamaris Castle was totally mind blowing as it dates back to 1295.  I’ve always had a great love of castles as they just fascinate me by how old they are and the way they were built.  I plan on viewing many more in the future!

As I love travelling and seeing new places I feel this is a great resource for future projects that involve creating a ’Persona’ or a ’Sense of Place’ as the more places I visit, the more I absorb and the more ideas and experiences I will have.  I also love to take photographs where ever I go, even if it’s just a small walk in the countryside, it’s great to have a varied and wide resource of photographs to use for texture, ideas or even backgrounds for projects.

The Banshee!

One of my summer projects was to choose a character from the book ‘Imaginary Beings’ by C.S Lewis and create a sense of place on my character, the world it would exist in, the objects it would use and the people and creatures it would interact with, I decided to choose ‘The Banshee’ as it had a very mysterious, dark and interesting appeal, already my mind was full of ideas.

My previous sense of place projects normally have been sketch book based and so I decided to combine sketch book work with a persona feel to it.  So far I have been making a small witch-like altar, tarot cards, curious alchemy diagrams and pagan oddities, I am also trying to collect strange and wonderful bits as I go along. I am still deciding how I would like to portray ‘The Banshee’, maybe she is beautiful, maybe she is an old hag! or maybe she is a spirit…I shall post some photo’s on here soon.

This is the start of the project and I look forward to find out the next part which will be briefed back in the studio tomorrow.

Just So Festival, Saturday 18th August

What can I say!! - A totally crazy, busy and kaos experience.  Between myself and 1 other volunteer in the morning and an additional volunteer in the afternoon we helped make just short of 400 lanterns in just over 6 hours, Which means we beat last years record…So I feel very happy about that :)
It was a very challenging but really enjoyable experience, despite being drenced in water, PVA glue with tissue paper stuck to my hair and muddy feet, I loved the entire experience and really learnt alot in terms of working with the public in a live event.

If I get the opportunity to help at next year’s Just So Festival I would like to be more involved in the organisation of the Lantern Making, and I would also like to work with other students in my class to create a really fun activity for all to participate in.

At the end of the day I walked around the festival and looked at all the crazy, surreal and beautiful things that were created and made, It was amazing…Lord Whitney as per usual did some really brilliant things.
I look forward to ‘Just So 2013’