The spirits of things…

‘Toys and God have a lot in common’ – Grayson Perry

I made these few weeks ago but never blogged about them as I’m still not sure where it’s going. I started thinking about the personal value of objects visiting the Charmed Life exhibition at the Wellcome collection. I like the notion of objects offering comfort to the owner and acting as a silent witness to their experiences and their history. Toys do this very well, for example a child clutches onto a toy to ward off bad dreams and mysterious shadows in a room.

I made the sketches above thinking about personifying these qualities. I thought about Worry dolls and figures from the Horniman Museum and ended up making up my own miniature characters of comfort using some recycled paper pieces from older projects… It’s just a starting point of an idea which I want to look into when university work dies down a bit…

A Monday off…

It’s been too long since I made something that isn’t for uni. This clutch bag is essentially made up of unwanted stuff: upholstery fabric samples that my brother picked off the streets used to make the pocket, a once loved necklace for the zip charms, an H&M belt that I’ve never worn as well as a large amount of dark grey denim and zips, I brought two years ago thinking that somehow I’d manage to make lots of bags and purses to sell on etsy..  I’ve still got to shift four meters of quality cream faux fur (Wwwhy…) and a huge piece of cow hide that’s been sitting on the banister of the stairs for about a year or more…

Matsuri!!

I spent yesterday working from garments I’d seen over the weekend at the Japan Matsuri (festival) at the Southbank. Love Japanese fabrics and pattern for their imagery of nature and their amazing sense of colour. It’s also the first time since foundation that I’ve had a proper dabble with ink again. I’d forgotten how vibrant they can be. Hopefully you can get a sense of the qualities of the fabrics too!

Media: Ink, wall emulsion, Sakura souffle, Chinese calligraphy paper.

Jacob’s Coffee House: The final stage!

So, two weeks ago I went down to Bath to meet the people at the coffee shop and get started. We decided that the balloon was too segmented from the text so instead we worked together to design some information that would inform the customers about what made their coffee special. Overall a great day working with some super lovely people and the coffee shop got just what they were looking for! All round happy!!

 

 

Jacob’s Coffee House concept sketches: Part II

I was asked to make the text bolder, so I looked at the clarity of the text and it’s readability. The teacup balloon got the seal of approval and the text was revised. I tried tried some different styles of hand lettering looking at old letterpress and vintage adverts. I went down two routes, a looser hand lettering style and as well as something more traditional.

Jacob’s Coffee House concept sketches: Part I

Here are some concept sketches I did for Jacob’s Coffee House in Bath (located right by the Abbey and the Pump rooms for those who want to drop by). The brief was very roughly, something eye catching that informs customers that there is room upstairs to enjoy your coffee. The text would fit neatly inside a door frame that leads the customers up some stairs so I tried to consider how imagery could ease the short walk up. I made some sketches to accompany the text, the interior of  the shop feels a little classic yet maybe a little eccentric but welcoming too? So I tried to go for something a wee bit wacky… like birds carrying cake… and a teacup balloon… an owl learning how to make coffee…

Some more concept sketches using the colour of the walls and showing some of my colour suggestions. I kept the colour palette simple and clean which I felt was in keeping with the interior of the shop.

Twins

A card for my cousin on the arrival of her long awaited twins! I wanted to give the card a slight fairy tale theme. Finding appropriate coloured papers was so difficult. As white looks too washed out and plain (even for me!) and pink and blue are not really suitable as they clash and there is one boy and one girl. Yellow seemed to be the best compromise.

I used a lose sheet of yellow tracing paper inside so the card would look slightly different under different lights and give a nice glow to fit in with the fairy tale theme.

A week in papercuts – Part III

 

Experimenting…

 

 

creating patterns??…

 

 

Intertwining pattern, dual colour….

 

 

Asian style clouds…

Repeating units…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A week in papercuts – Part II

Step by step! Just for fun!

 

 

A week in papercuts – Part I

Random experiments with shape and and layering…