Layla Holzer

Illustration Rally Valentine's feature

2012-02-03T05:17:00.000-08:00

My 'La La Love' image I originally created for Becky Jeram's lyric book has been featured as part of the Valentine's Day rally on Illustration Rally :

http://illustrationrally.blogspot.com/2012/01/valentines-day-rally-no13.html

Final pieces: The Man in the Moon

2012-02-03T04:52:00.000-08:00

The Man in the Moon

Looking at the natural curiosities and behaviours of a child and questioning how a parent reacts to it. The text that accompanies the images sees the mother preaching to her son "if you don't behave, the Man in the Moon will come to get you." which echoes the threats of bogeymen, monsters etc. that I have heard parents threaten their children with to behave.

Final pieces: Lazy Maisie

2012-02-03T04:50:00.001-08:00

Lazy Maisie

Cautionary tale about laziness and too-obliging parents

Final pieces: Laurence the little Liar

2012-02-03T04:47:00.001-08:00

Laurence the little Liar

A cautionary tale warning about lying and questioning what parents should tell a child to instruct behaviour.

Final pieces: Nosey Rosie

2012-02-03T04:41:00.001-08:00

Nosey Rosie

A cautionary tale of natural child curiosity and what/if/how parents should go about concealing things away from 'innocent' minds.

Written, illustrated and bound by me.

Gouache on watercolour paper.

Exhibition stuffs

2012-01-22T01:28:00.000-08:00

6 days until our exhibition opens up and I'm nearing the end of my final pieces! Woot! Here are some previews of what one may expect to see when lurking amongst my space. I'm exhibiting 4 books, a magic lantern with 3 slides and luminaria lanterns. Just need to decide how to display it all!

Eccentric Worlds exhibition

2012-01-18T01:28:00.000-08:00

Us second year Illustration student folk are holding our exhibition 28th Jan - 5th Feb in Cardiff's Capitol Centre. Free entry and plenty of diverse work to see from paintings, books, comic strips, animations, projections, 3d work, stitch and textile work etc. Please come and visit us, it may just change your life!

(Poster by myself and Jade Fisher)

Magic Lantern

2011-12-22T00:57:00.000-08:00

Another part of my drawing meth. brief was to create a Magic Lantern - info here ;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_lantern.

The idea was suggested to me by my tutor at the start of term & I've been obsessed with it since.

The lantern projects the image from a slide onto a wall, it's basically an simple slide projector. I have been working with the idea of shadows and darkness, tying it in with childhood and what shadows come to life once the bedroom light has been switched off, but it didn't quite fit in with the route I have taken my Eccentricities project. So I've worked it into my drawing meth. Also, painting on a small scale (the slides) may help my detailing and composition. I also love the idea of light throwing out an image, and the audience having the power over the narrative in that they themselves move the slide along in the box - this ties in nicely with my interest in interaction.

So, so far, I have successfully made a magic lantern! I am going to draw up my step-by-step and take proper photos soon of it, it's still mainly just a box with mirrors, a light and a lens, it will be soon decorated and made to look beautiful! I really struggled to find any tutorials on how to make a lantern, so I had to really improvise. I knew I needed a box, mirrors, light and lenses, I just had to work it out from there!

I have made one slide to test it:

This was on the wall, probably just under a metre large, with the lantern a metre and a half-ish away from the wall. One snag I did it was the distance from the wall and how focuses the slide is, so I need to create a gap in the lens tunnel so you can slide the lens glass back and forward to focus. Pretty pleased with how it has turned out though, I just need to do all my slides now!

Drawing Methodologies

2011-12-22T00:38:00.000-08:00

For Drawing Methodologies, we were asked to devise our own briefs for our final pieces. I wanted to tie it in with my Eccentricities project and keep it quite fairytale-esque, but with different style and working methods.

I set myself a brief of re-telling fairy tales through shadows, light and silhouette. I want to look how form, pose and shape, and hope it'll help me in my paintings with proportion, movement, expression etc. I have set myself 3 final outcomes: A shadow puppet play of Peter and the Wolf, using black card to create rod held and movable puppets, a magic lantern with slides retelling stories, which I hope will also help my narrative sequences, and luminarias, to see how I can tell a narrative on a single object.

This is my shadow puppet show, performed on the 14th December. All puppets were created by me, from black card and coloured acetate. Most of them move through split-pin joints and are all held up using rods. Alice Eades and Jade Fisher helped me to perform this.

I decided to do puppets to see how movement etc can be created from paper/card creations. Puppetry is something I have previously used in my pop-up books, and working out ways to make something move and interact is something I am really interested in. I also felt using shadows tied in with my Eccentricities project, dark and mysterious. I have previously looked at shadows in that project. I also generally love story telling through puppetry, it's fun to do and watch and I like challenging myself on ways to make the actual puppets, and how to carve out detail and expression in them. These puppets are a lot more detailed than any previous ones I created, and also move a lot better.

Morals and Cautions of fairy tales

2011-10-27T13:38:00.000-07:00

Be careful what you wish for

You can't be a hero unless you take a risk.

Don't talk to strangers.
Don't stray off the path.

Curiosity can lead to regret.
Don't belittle your children.
You have to make a journey to gain independence and wisdom.

Respect other people's belongings and property.

Control your urges and greed.

Just a few sketchbook examples on cautions and morals I have been illustrating. I want to eventually collide these with the ideas, ordeals and nasties that modern children are immersed in today.

Eccentricities and Obsessions

2011-09-28T04:31:00.000-07:00

I'm studying childhood, children and the idea of das unheimliche for my Eccentricities and Obsessions project. Anything that's dark, sinister, unsettling, creepy etc clashing with the perceived idea of a child's innocence. I'm particularly interested in fairytales, nursery rhymes and cautions, the ideals and negativity of today's child in society, parenting and imagination.

Over the summer I have been doing a loooot of research into all these areas, collected hundreds of images, collected and read heaps of books, obsessed over Marina Warner and Paula Rego, visited several exhibitions, collected lost toys and worked on painting and drawing.

A few images, many more to come shortly...

Lost toys I've collected

Beyond Fiction

2011-06-23T13:38:00.000-07:00

Brief was to make collect random objects, and use them as clues to create a story.

I had:

A photo I took of a man on my train, dressed in a striped rainbow jacket, with a matching straw hat & rainbow ribbon, rainbow braces, one red shoe, one green shoe and odd socks
A lost sock
A button
A photo I took of deer skulls
Train tickets (journey/travel)
A bell on ribbon
A gold leaf (woodlands)

I made my story as a pop-up book, A-3 sized, and then filmed it.

I used a mix of footage and photos, and created it using iMovie (completely new to me!). The music is from Donnie Darko and Goldfrapp, and narration is me (with added pitch) and my other half.

All illustration was done using watercolour and pencil on watercolour paper.

The pages have now been bound as a book with covers.

I wanted to bring several ideas/concerns to the story that irks me in everyday life. The idea of leaving a child alone outside whilst there is a child kidnapper on the loose was intended to be a foolish, stupid thing to do, to reflect those who don't keep a more watchful eye on their children, or leave them alone, when there is danger around.
I used the brightly coloured rainbow man as a sinister character as he looks like he belongs in a child's world. I felt it'd be more interesting to twist that and use him as a threat to children, to bring forward the idea of deceptive appearances. It reminded me of cautions parents would tell their children of strangers offering sweets etc.
The twist in the end was created to throw the viewer off, and make you rethink your judgements and instincts. Being told a sorrowful tale to justify sinful actions can make you re-adjust your opinion of someone. But, two wrongs don't make a right. I also wanted to trick the viewer into thinking the man was alright, but by the character being turned into a creature at the very end by him hopefully takes the viewer by suprise, forcing them to reassess their judgement of someone.

I used the idea of the children being turned into creatures as a somewhat metaphor for death. I felt it'd be too harsh to directly kill off the children, and that having them turned into muted, skull-heads would be more fairytale-ish and unsettling. It's also a shock to see an innocent child turned into something sinister looking. But again, going back to deceptive appearances, the children look sinister, but they're not, and actually help the character on her journey. I would hope this teaches something about those who look alarming due to disabilities and facial disfigurements, but are actually just normal, nice people within.

In the newspaper, I purposely did not add much mention about children. The only mention of children are the missing children article, which is then contrasted by the restaurant review below it, and a very brief mention of a school fete. All the rest of the articles are geared towards adults - events, meetings etc and other things concerning the village. Even the missing children article was rather brief. I really wanted to push forward this idea that the adults were more wrapped up in themselves, to coincide with the idea of taking more care and protection of your children when there's so much danger around. I'd hope viewers would pick up on this, realise the mistake of the villagers and be more aware of this issue in our society.

I'm going to continue working with pop-ups, and addressing society issues through stories. I hope to work again with filming my work, as I feel it worked out well. I may even try creating a 3-d pop-up book film using the blue/red tint as I did with my Prophecy project.

Prophecy

2011-06-09T10:06:00.001-07:00

The task was to make a prophecy about the future, based on predictions that have recently been made by others. I chose to look at evolution, after reading an article claiming natural evolution has reached it’s peak and it’s unlikely we will change any further. This got me thinking about genetic engineering and the idea that surely creating new breeds and creatures will affect evolution. I predict that in the future, we will have many new animals and hybrids, and I also think due to fertility engineering and the idea of “designer babies”, we also as a race, will change. This will be man-made evolution.

I read a few quotes from scientists and philosophers opposing genetic engineering, claiming they predict something eventually will go wrong. I too agree with this, as a believer in ‘not messing with nature’. I feel although we may eventually find cures for illnesses and create fantastical species, it will backfire on us.

I researched a lot into different genetic experiments that are being conducted as well plans for future experiments. I was quite shocked at what is being carried out and created, a few examples being mice created with 1% human brain - with a future ambition of creating mice with 100% human brains to research Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, animals that are spliced with jellyfish DNA to make them glow in the dark, frogs that have been engineered to have translucent skin, so cancerous tumours can be grown inside them and studied from looking directly through the skin. Animal and human hybrid embryos have also successfully been made, but destroyed before growing to full term, as any risks are currently unknown. Artificial breeding is also a cause for concern, with animals being crippled from incorrect bone structures and brain problems amongst others. A lot of these animals being experimented on/created also have highly aggressive tendencies.

At the moment, there is a lot of unknown risks with genetic engineering. My concern is what happens if these risks appear when it’s too late? I predict that there will be a lot of new laboratory created species on the planet, created for many different purposes - medical, aesthetics, weaponry, curiosity, and some of these species will become a threat to humans in some way .

I am using this prediction as a caution to our present day society not to take experimentation too far into the unknown. My final piece/prophecy illustrates a hypothetical future situation of genetic engineering becoming a destruction to humanity.

I have set my prophecy to take place in the year 2160. I read an article featuring scientist James Lovelock, who believes the world will really start to drastically change in different ways in about 100 years. I have fast forwarded to 2160 to illustrate consequences of these changes, in this case, genetic engineering. I have laid out my prophecy as an electronic tablet. I believe in the future, we will no longer receive letters, bills, newsletters etc through the post, for environmental reasons. People will receive mail on “e-Readers”, which I have named e-Cobox (eco-friendly mail box), which will arrive like e-mail does in inboxes. It’ll be touch screen and 3-D, following up and pushing present technology.

On the e-Cobox, a Government issued report appears, detailing the current crisis in species, and offers guidelines and advice. I wanted to echo the Government issued pamphlets that were seen in the wars the Cold War for example, where citizens were given advice on what to do in a nuclear/bomb crisis etc.

I have created 7 species, outlining how and why they were made, what threat they have to humans, and what action to take. This gives the viewer a background on other prophecies into the future i.e. cure for illnesses, war, aesthetic desires.

I have created the website twice: one is a normal view, the other is 3-D, which can be viewed through anaglyph glasses (the 3-D blue and red lens glasses). Everything was hand-drawn, scanned in and edited through Photoshop, before being uploaded and arranged into the website.

http://www.wix.com/prophette/prophecy

Witness

2011-05-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

Brief was to observe the world around us and record it through photos, drawings, film, writing etc. Then, take this and use as a base for a moral tale and illustrate it. I focused on the 'dregs of society' and narrowed into the current asbos youth culture that's continuously reported in the media and through converstaions etc. I looked at cautionary tales through fables, Struwwelpeter and Angela Carter and wrote my own cautionary tale, as an animal allegory about rats that cause havoc in a forest and get their comeuppance.

I decided to create it as a pop-up and interraction book, as it's an area I'd really like to specialise in. All illustrations were watercoloured and detailed with fineliner and white pen on cartridge and watercolour paper, and then arranged on the page. There are pull tab machanisms for movable parts, layered relief pages and pop-ups. I handbound the book into a hardcover I made and covered with cream and gold flock paper for a vintage-victorian effect. The title cover is hand-cut from painted watercolour paper and I lined the insides with black card and angel hair paper.

Click "view all images" under the slider to see individual images at a larger scale)

Adam Coley promo designs

2011-04-08T15:21:00.000-07:00

My brother works as a dj, and is releasing a promo record. He asked me to do some cover designs for it, so I knocked a few up. The portrait is pencil, fineliner and ink and I edited and added text and circled in Photoshop. The black record with white type is hand drawn.

100 Thumbnails

2011-03-06T02:18:00.000-08:00

Brief was to listen/read to stories and then spontaenously draw 100 thumbnails narrating your own story, with no planning, literally drawing ideas straight onto paper. The thumbnail boxes were not of fixed size, and couldn't be drawn with a ruler, and the images were intended to be fast depictions, not heavily detailed.

I read Angela Carter's Little Red Riding Hood stories (my favourite fairytale) and also watched the film adaption of Carter's The Company Of Wolves (complete with shocking 80's effects!). After that film had ended, I watched a lot of horror films such as The Evil Dead trilogy, It, The Devil's Rejects, The Brood...all nice disurbing films :-D I knew I wanted my story to follow a more gritty, horror path so surrounded myself by as much gore and terror as I could.

I kept LRRH in the story, and the wolf, but depicted him as half wold half man. The grandmother makes no appearance. I also included themes of stockholm syndrome, post-natal depression and rejection, revenge, gender issues and lots of red! Funnily enough, I was well half way into this before I had my tutorial (see previous post), and kind of felt I was on the right track afterwards.

I chose to use black and red fineliners and bolder lines, I think I'm going to explore this style a bit further, I quite like the red and black/2 colour simplicity. I'd like to somehow, at some point, use this story again, maybe adapting it slightly, or something...I also bought this book a couple of weeks ago, only dipped into the first chapter so far, but it's really interesting; http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0465041264/ref=oss_product

Here are the pics...slide will only let you put in 50 pics so it's split over 2 slide shows.

Tutorial Feedback

2011-03-02T02:23:00.000-08:00

First term feedback...

No more cute faces
No more girly decoration
Use bolder lines
Look at Paula Rego, Kiki Smith, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Chadwick, Otto Dix, Emil Nolde, Max Ernst, Max Beckman
Indulge more seriously in the gritty side of life

This is the route I kind of wanted to take anyway, so it was quite nice that my tutors are positively pushing me to go with it. I got an A- for Illustration Communication, B+ for Drawing Methodologies and C+ for my essay. Really pushing to get my essay writing sorted, after 7 years out of education, that essay was the first I had written since my A Levels! And I really hate having to reference everything, it gets in the way of what I really want to say. And hopefully taking on the ban of decoration and adopting the use of bolder lines, my drawing meth. grades will improve.

I'm also going to start a "book of faces", just to study a range of different looks and expressions etc so that I'm not constantly using the same looking people in my work.

Overall, really happy...looks like I haven't left my salon career for nothing after all!!

Image and Text

2011-02-22T03:11:00.000-08:00

Our second brief of the year/term two was Image and Text, a short two week project. We had to draw a partner, capturing their character in expression and pose, give them a background to reflect this and then add text to contradict the image.

I chose Alice and drew her in a one-shoulder-up, sweet, 'nice girl' gesture, and used this for my final piece. Alice is what I would label as 'sickeningly sweet', a true girly girl with a very sweet, gentle and cheerful nature. I gave her a over the top pink wallpaper-esque background, with flowers and cute baby animals with bows on. This is a direct representation of Alice, her girlyness and love for nature and animals. I also sprayed bleach over the pink ink to give a white splattered effect - which I'll explain later.
I kept Alice's portrait in soft pencils, to match her softer personality, and added vellum paper with glitter polka dots on over her top, with stitchwork on it to represent her love for fashion and textiles. I used yellow thread to represent cheerfulness and purple and pink thread for femininity.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to add very sinister text to completely warp the image, but I knew such words would ruin the aesthetics of the image, so I wanted to hide them and have the viewer reveal them. I decided to do this through a slide tab mechanism, and hide the words behind something, only to have them pop up into view. I also wanted the viewer to get a strong assumption of Alice and the image first, and then have that view twisted by the words. Personally, if I see an image with text on, my eye naturally reads the text first, especially if it's quite bold on the page. I also relected on an exhibition I saw in my A-Levels, of Freddie Robbins and her Knitted Houses of Crime - cute knitted houses on plinths around a room. After exploring all these little houses, I found the information for each one on the wall, and it turned out a murder had taken place in each of these houses. My perception completely changed, the houses were no longer sweet and cute but horrible. It was such a powerful technique of word and image and I knew I really wanted to carry that forward in my own work.

I chose to do a frame of flowers around the bottom of the portrait to hide the words behind. I used flowers that were symbols of Alice's nature, so daisies, baby's breath, camellias, white roses and lillies to reflect innocence, daintiness, fair, purity, femininity and buttercups for cheerfulness. I also added a poppy to reflect death, which matches with the sinister words I chose, as do the lillies as they also are linked to death. The sprayed bleach onto the background also links to the sinister idea, as it reminded me of blood splashed at a crime scene.

The words I chose were "Charles Manson is my hero". I had originally got the idea from a line in a Tori Amos song "...me and Charles Manson like the same icecream". This always strikes me as such an obscure sentence, icecream and Charles Manson don't match, someone soft, sweet and lovely doesn't fit with someone so evil. And so I substituted Alice for the icecream and met it with Manson. I created a very scratchy, bold type for the words - I'm rubbish at typography but made an effort to only use handwritten type throughout this project, as it's an area I need to work on.

The sliding mechanism with the text is attached behind the flowers, which are layered over Alice. The portrait of Alice was cut out and foam-tabbed onto the background, so the entire image does have a slightly layered effect.

The response I got from the finished piece was what I was aiming for; an overally sweet picture with stark contrasting words. The idea of hiding the text so the viewer could gain a strong perception of the image first worked well. I'm also starting to delve more into the sinister side of things that I'm morbidly attracted to.

Assessment digital links

2011-01-30T09:40:00.000-08:00

My online links for digital work.

Museum Of Me website: http://www.wix.com/lrrhmuseum/museum

Personification:

Moving Image:

Animation: Violet's Flight of Fancy

2011-01-27T04:18:00.000-08:00

11 full working days, 2 all nighters (in the past 54 hours, I have had 4 hours sleep!), over 1000 photographs, 100 drawings, two packs of split pins, a dislocated knee (Alice), a strained back from leaning against a wall and table taking photos (me), and a lot of tea, has resulted in the final finished animation. We decided to call our girl Violet after her purple dress, and we've titled it "Violet's Flight of Fancy" (thank you thesaurus).

Editing was a MAJOR pain...I have major backache after being sat at a desk for days, just cropping, filtering, adding backgrounds and saving photos, but piecing it together was fun! I added Autumn Leaves by Goldfrapp, a nice instrumental tune, which seems to fit nicely with the dreamy scenes. For the shadow puppetry scenes, I used Marilyn Manson's Sweet Dreams which both me and Alice thought would be perfect, and I think it does fit well. After saving the animation, I reopened it in Windows Movie Maker and added in more sounds over the audio, of birds, bubbles and water and monster screams, which I downloaded from soundbible.com (good site for free sounds, I've used it quite a lot for recordings)

So anyway, here's the video. I'm off to get some sleep at last!!

:D

2011-01-26T06:28:00.000-08:00

This animation is slowly killing me but I am determined to get it done right! I spent all afternoon yesterday working on it, and worked throughout the night, pausing to go to sleep at 8am ish for a few hours, now I am back on it. Working pretty well so far, I uploaded it to Youtube so a tutor could see it, and have since slowed the pace down properly and finished off the scene

Am now editing the pics for the next 3 scenes, fuelled by A LOT of tea and music (god bless Goldfrapp for keeping me awake and alert throughout the night!!)

Also, I've been informed I have been granted a £3000 scholarship due to my "excellent performance entry"! Think I'll be buying me a nice shiny Mac!!

Animation

2011-01-23T11:55:00.000-08:00

So our first project for the new term: Animation. A 2 week project. I started over christmas as myself and my work partner Alice already knew what we wanted to do so I just cracked on with it. We decided to do drawn animation - paper cut and shadow puppets, in a stop motion style.

The story is of a girl in bed sleeping. As she slips into deep sleep, she starts dreaming about a wonderland, full of birds, flowers and general prettiness. But it'll then graduate into a nightmare.

I drew around 100 images for the frames, edited them on Photoshop where needed and put them into sequence on Windows Movie Maker. This was the first try:

I added all the Zzzs in Photoshop and just moved them along for each frame.

I then added the next part, where the girl falls through the bed

And then this is the finish hand drawn part:

Where it stops is where the paper cut part will kick off, showing the magical dream world.

We have all the paper cut outs ready, which both myself and Alice have created. We are shooting the pictures tomorrow and then will do the shadow puppet scenes on tuesday.

Deadline is friday 28th Jan!

The City

2011-01-23T11:32:00.000-08:00

I never got round to posting this up before xmas. Our last brief for term one was a visual essay on the city. I decided to work on the idea of how dirty, grey and bland cities look. As much as I love visiting cities, I really hate the look of them. Hailing from the countryside, I much prefer, and am used to seeing trees, fields and lots of lovely green!! I now live in a city (have been now for 3 and a half years) and I really dislike it.
So after writing a ranting essay about how ugly the city of London looks, I was advised to make it a little less one sided and to incorporate an argument into it. I looked at the manifestos and proposals by the mayor of London, to see if he was doing anything to help, I was actually quite suprised about how much is now being done, or is planned to be done.
And so I rewrote my essay with both sides; how dirty the city is and how it's being dealt with. My original idea was the make the city come to life and seek revenge on the humans, which I kept in this essay. I opened it with the havoc being caused by buildings coming to life, the Thames tidal waving, bridges snapping and so on. Then comes in the argument, held by Big Ben who is disgruntled at the state of the city, and me, who explains that we are trying to help.

I created my essay as a pop up book. I used simple layered box popups and stuck on images, I also used rotary and pull tab mechanisms and layered things using foam pads and folded paper, to make things stand off the page. I used watercolours, pencil and fineliners as usual for my artwork. I binded the pages with thread and sewed them into a hard cover to create the book.

I enjoyed this brief, although it took me a while to get into it as I struggled with the concept of the argument, plus I had a very clear idea of creating a city that comes to life, but had to work the story and argument around it. I am happy with the result, creating the pop ups and artwork was really fun. I may keep the idea and work with it at some point in animation, it could be quite fun making and seeing it all literally come to life!

Site update

2010-12-31T07:55:00.000-08:00

My website has been updated with gallery changes. Bit more organised.

www.laylaholzer.co.uk

Happy New Year!

Thank you cards

2010-12-30T15:35:00.000-08:00

I made some thank you cards in response to some christmas presents.

I used watercolour pencils, fineliners and a ballpoint pen with cut out circles of patterned paper, and some "thank you" scrolls I made in Photoshop and printed out. The insides are constructed on a box pop out mechanism.

Shadow Play

2010-12-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

For the end of term, we performed a shadow play, entitled Nine Cautions and Fairy Tales, based on the short stories from one of my fave childhood books Struwwelpeter, The Grimm Brothers and Angela Carter.

My group had The Man That Shoots The Hares and Mossycoat. We all made puppets from black card and acetate and sellotape that I coloured in with promarkers for a coloured lit up effect :)

A few pics, thanks to Kate from my class

Mossycoat and Young Master dancing under disco ball, all created by myself. The skirt was created seperately and attached by a split pin. When the figures were held up and swung from side to side, the skirt swung with it, as though the two were dancing. We acted this scene with the song Je t'aime, for a comical effect!

Mossycoat and her mother, created my myself (mossy) and Alice (mother). The mother's wheel spun round.

Mossycoat title, created by me

The Man That Shoots The Hares, created by Alice and Amy

The end of the show signified the end of term!! And now for four weeks of relaxation, food, tea, doodles and films :)

Building Projection

2010-11-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

Mid research for the latest project, City, found this, totally amazing projection work!!

Museum Of Me

2010-11-23T07:39:00.000-08:00

Our first full project, to design a Museum Of Me.

I chose to create a website in the style of a museum, focused on the theme of my childhood. I used wix.com to build the website, which is linked from my art website. It features music, video, image mapping, light animations, a guestbook and is laid out like an actual museum. I hand drew all the illustrations, scanned and edited them in Photoshop and then loaded them online and rearranged them on the pages, creating links to further pages and embedding things like music and so on.

I wanted to create a museum that the viewer could explore, and be nosey within, and the use of image mapping has allowed me to create pages/rooms that can be looked around and ventured into further by clicking on illustrated objects to view further images and information. My aim isn't to depress the viewer or gain sympathy regardng my childhood but merely to just catalogue my roots and what has shaped me into the adult and artist I am now. I have included only the things that have been burnt into my memory or things that had an impact on me. I hope that the viewer enjoys my museum with interest and curiosity. This museum is a direct reflection and representation of me, it houses my roots, and I have been completely honest on the pages (although have kept back some information that I felt was too personal to be put online). The actual technical side has opened my eyes up a bit further to using technology as a way of presenting my work - I usually work more traditionally on paper or canvas, so this was quite a refreshing change, but more suited to my wants in regards of creating an interactive and engaging museum. And as previously said, it links nicely with my actual website. I have definitely learnt that I need to control my use on Photoshop, and I will be bearing this in mind for my future use on this art programme.
I’m also glad to have revisited measuring and working with angles and perspective, something I haven’t done since GCSE Graphics. Although a lot more ordered and constructed than I usually work, it was quite valuable to revisit this as I’m sure I shall probably put it into practise again, perspective and proportion being one area I always struggle with.
In all I think my answer to the brief has been successful and I am very pleased with the outcome, it's been a valuable project for me and one which I will learn from.

http://www.wix.com/lrrhmuseum/museum

Secret Life Of Objects

2010-11-23T07:33:00.000-08:00

Explore inanimiate objects through personification and narration.

I chose to use scissors and a paintbrush, and made a simple stop animation. This is only the second attempt I have tried at animation, so it's really amateur, but was quite fun to piece together :-)

I used Windows Movie Maker and Photoshop to combine my hand drawn illustrations and text together.

London trip

2010-11-17T06:27:00.000-08:00

On the 21st September, myself and two other students went to London to visit some museums as part of research for this project. The first museum we went to, was The Museum Of Everything, in Primrose Hill. I have previously been to the museum in 2009, but the new exhibition focuses a theme of the circus, fairground and childhood. The museum also features items from Sir Peter Blake's hoarded collection, Arthur Windley's miniature circus/fairground and Walter Potter's Museum of Curiosities.

The coach jouney to London and our books

The bridge in Primrose Hill en route to the Museum of Everything

Museum of Everything entrance

The museum is based in a dairy, hidden behind a library. The front entrance is a simple double wooden gate like door, decked with fairy lights and an over-door sign. The hallway displayed a donations box which looked like a ticket booth with an attendant inside, and a gust book. I loved the set up design for this; the book was sat on a plinth nested in a nook in the wall which was adorned with a stripy red and white flag, boarded with tube fairy lights.
Unfortunately, we couldn't take photos, which knocked out the enjoyment a bit for me, as the atmosphere and styling of the museum is exactly what I love and photos would have been a fabulous record of things to inspire me. There was a set pathway, aided by walls which were adorned with photos, art pieces, postcards, signs, costumes and much more. Every room was dimly lit, almost glowing soft lights. The walls were very rugged looking with white painted bricks. The rooms were like chambers, small and intimate. There was a very small chamber that showcased a class cabinet full of old dolls, which always fascinate me. I managed to take a couple of sneaky photos, as I love scary doll faces and the postures and clothing that they carry. Another small room was covered in shells and artefacts made from shells, giving a British seaside, jolly holiday feel, which worked nicely into the next room, which was full of puppets. Punch and Judy puppets predominately filled the room, with theatre boxes, as well as a beautifully creepy collection of black, metal shadow puppets. The puppets were all very old, which just adds to the freakiness and ugliness of them.
From that, a doorway led us into the main hall, which has extremely high walls. On the walls sat huge circus banners and signs as well as weird and interesting work by Forrest Bess, Mose Tolliver, Kunizo Matsumoto, Madge Gill and Sam Doyle, among others.
Stairs led us upstairs to a balcony style room which had false grass carpet, art work by John and Anna and Joby Carter and their collection of vintage fairground rides. A small collection though. A carousel horse sits proudly in the middle whilst a bumper car and traditional funfair game stall fill the rest of the space. It actually felt like I had walked into a very quiet fairground.
A few steps to the back led down into a white open space full of Water Potter's stuffed animal. As I was looking amongst them, I felt like I had seen them before. The, coming across a glass cabinet featuring toads dressed up as humans and working out in athletic movements. It's coin operated, placing a coin in will kick-start the toads into moving! On seeing this, memories hit me; I had seen this previously, at around 9/10 years old in Cornwall. A poster on the wall confirmed this: Potter's collection had exhibited at the Jamaica Inn in Cornwall. I'd always ponder on some of the stuffed animals I had seen from that exhibition, the two-headed sheep and three legged piglet always bounced into my memories, but seeing all again in this dairy museum surrounded by fairground rides and banners, old dolls, puppets, fairy lights and dark rooms just brought on a whole new fascination and a real feeling of being almost disturbed yet enthralled.

Our next stop was an exhibition in St Pancras Church crypt, entitled Flashier and Trashier, curated by Sue Krietzman, whose also one of the main artists who exhibits in this immense collection of kitsch paintings. and assemblage art made from recycled bits of anything and everything.
The exterior of the church and crypt area is scary and really made me feel on edge, if a bit excited! The entrance was two big red doors, with concrete steps leading down into the crypt, which took us to a little reception area occupied by the curator and two featured artists, who welcomed us and invited us in. An figure stood in a nooked archway to the side of the stairs, softly lit in a golden glow, an angel made from a blow up doll, wings and oodles of telephone spiral chords with cigarette packets, miniature bottles, pound notes hanging off the ends, and holding a Red Bull can and a handbag. A quick look to the side of me saw an open arch in the wall, like a window, and down a small tunnel through it, sat the torso and head of a mannequin, being lit up by a flashing lit. And this was just the beginning!! To start, we were confronted by a stretching wide tunnel, softly lit. The walls were adorned with hangings; paintings, mannequins, stuffed hand stitched creatures and much more. More tunnels led off this main one, which led into rooms. It was almost like a labyrinth of very small chambers and tunnels and is probably the most amazing exhibition space I have ever been in. Each nook or hollow in the wall was occupied by some hybrid of artefact and art. I walked around one corned to see a tunnel passage way, very softly lit. A couple of dolls in very small, vintage prams sat, looking discarded in this passage, like a child was playing with them but just got up and left them. Very eerie. Along this passage was an archway built into the wall, with a huge ledge upon which sat an array of dolls and doll heads. My favourite was a Frida Kahlo shrine, which featured the her face and a very colourful Mexican'esque decor.
Another arched chamber along this passage featured tombs laying against the wall with an army of skull masks on sticks, cemented in shoes. An alarming yet comical sight to see! Another room had "An Only Child " written above the doorway, with a table inside on which this 'thing' laid upon. A black body, with matted faux fur, and facial parts grotesquely glued on, and a foot which was replaced by an alligator head. It's probably the ugliest thing I have ever seen.
Towards the back was a rectangular shaped room, which had two green doors leading to space behind, set in one corner, they reminded me of outhouse doors, whether they were toilets behind, or just cupboards, I do not know. There were steps leading up to stained glass windows, and a boy mannequin holding an umbrella. A bench sat in the middle with figures scattered around. These figures had heads, arms and legs. Their bodies were suitcases, filled with collections. One had door handles on shelves in the case, another had Barbie doll limbs. A slightly different approach to showcasing a collection I thought!
On the other end of this room, was a large yellow box on legs. On top were rows and rows of birds made from wine bottle corks. Some sat bellow the box too. On the yellow box were glued on toys and knickknacks. Holes were cut out, and inside, you could see thousands of small toy doll faces glued onto the inner walls, lit up by toy disco light balls. The effect was amazing and so surreal.
After we finished looking around (it was hard to drag ourselves away, the atmosphere in there was just amazing) we had a chat with the curator, Sue, and the other two artists. They were very pleasant to talk to, and seemed very interested in us and our course and aspirations. When I explained our project brief, Sue was very interested and exclaimed the exhibition was "the museum of me, my mind, even the crypts!". We left our email addresses in their guestbook so we could be added to her mailing list to be alerted of new exhibitions. This was by far one of the most intriguing, exciting and creepy exhibitions I have ever visited. The crypts were an amazing venue for an art exhibition. I really dislike white cube spaces in galleries, they're so boring and too clean. The crypts were a total opposite to this, and the Museum Of Everything's dairy. I think these types of venues are so much more interested. They have history, and a very creepy feel about them, it's so unique and really compliments art, especially the more vibrant, surreal and different.

Our last exhibition was the Chapman Brother's children art commission at Whitechapel Art Gallery. A typically modern gallery, white, sterile and clean. However, the work was well worth going to see. The first room featured colourful, brash, ugly, vulgar pictures, accompanied with short texts from stories. The series are taken from their forthcoming children’s book “Bedtime Tales for Sleepless Nights‘’. The second room saw lots of small framed images scattered across the four walls. The pattern of the scattering was actually very nice, and worked well against the white walls. The pictures were plain black and white and seemed to be famous Chapman Brother prints, like their finger swastika. Over these well known images, large, colouring book cartoons were drawn or printed over the top, images taken from their series “Gigantic Fun’’ Large, flat drawings of innocent, happy children, set against rude, obscene, sexual, murderous and Nazi symbols and images, these are definitely not drawings for children to see. I always find the contrast of childhood and adulthood on the same page fascinating., especially when the ideas are highly exaggerated, like the Chapman Brother's do se well. Happy smiley children should never be in the same image as a penis, or a swastika, or hanging bodies. It just doesn't go together. But the contrast is so alarming and outrageous, that it becomes interesting. I also really loved the contrast of the actual image style. The original images are detailed, sketchy, although not excessively so, there's a definite depth and tone to them. The children illustrations are exact to those from a child's colouring book; large, flat, bold and simple.

Some street art we found

7 things about paper

2010-11-17T06:08:00.000-08:00

Seven things I bet you didn’t know about… paper

(one fact is a bluff, the aim is to guess which one it is)

Traditionally, paper is a gift that couples give to each other on their first wedding anniversary. Examples could be artwork, love letters and poetry, gift vouchers and tickets, books, paper flowers etc Personal knowledge

Recycling one ton of paper saves around 17 trees http://www.strange-facts.info/interesting-facts-about-paper, 14th October 2009 It also saves approximately 4 barrels of oil, 42000 kilowatts of energy and enough energy to heat and air-condition the average North American house for almost 6 months. http://www3.niu.edu/recycling/alum_facts/page5.html, Northern Illinois University

The structure of paper is described as a mat of intertwined fibres. Fibre is softened and broken up by liquid until each individual filament is a separate unit. The fibres are mixed with water and using a sieve like screen, are lifted from the water in the form of a thin layer. The water from the mulch drains through the screen, leaving the layer to dry out. This thin layer of intertwined fibre is paper. “The Book Of Fine Paper”, Silvie Turner, (Thames and Hudson, 1998)

You can get all kinds of paper. Drawing and writing, craft, coloured, sugar paper, book paper, coated paper, tracing paper. Cotton, inkjet, sandpaper. Wallpaper and tissue. Waterproof paper, wax paper and bank notes. The list goes on. Currency note paper is the strongest and most durable grade of paper. http://www.paperonweb.com, Hari Goyal, Ba and Ma in Paper Science and Engineering. From personal experience to back this up, there have been many times when my partner has left his change in his jean pockets and they’ve been put in the wash. The notes always survive the water. My favourite type of paper is handmade paper, from recycled papers, and pressed flowers. It has a nice texture and soaks up liquid making it nice to paint and ink on.

You can make paper with many different plants, weeds and flowers. It’s common to see paper with petals embedded in, they have become very popular of late. You can also get paper that is made out of algae and seaweed, which will give the paper a nice marbled deep green and black effect, with a glossy sheen. The plants are mixed in with the paper fibres, which causes them to bleed and marble within the paper mulch. As the paper dries, the algae or seaweed sets within the layers, staining the white paper tones of green and black. “Creative Handmade Paper” David Watson, (Search Press Limited, 1991)

More interestingly, you can get paper that is made out of animal waste. There is a company in Snowdonia that make paper using sheep waste, which they call “sheep poo paper”. They start by sterilising the poo by boiling it in a pressure cooker at over 120 degree centigrade and is then washed repeatedly over a period of days until is has lost approximately half of it’s original weight. This produces a big pile of usable fibres, which are beaten and blended with other recycled pulps until it reduces into a pulp that is suitable for paper making. The traditional paper making process is then carried out to create sheets of “sheep poo paper”. http://www.creativepaperwales.co.uk

Paper is used for many different reasons and in many different ways, but my favourite way is art. Paper craft, engineering, origami and pop-ups are a big interest of mine. It’s amazing how many different ways you can manipulate, bend and cut paper to achieve a form.

examples...

A selection of work

2010-10-15T03:47:00.001-07:00

So far on the degree....

Words to draw by...

Handmade tools...three feathered dip quill pens and two silver points

Book making workshop, folio designs.

New Scientist review

2010-10-05T07:35:00.000-07:00

As a group of three, we reviewed the New Scientist magazine, issue 2778. New Scientist is a weekly international £3.40 magazine that delivers light-hearted, inquisitive articles and news based around science and technology. It’s the perfect reading material for anybody who has a thirst for the broad subject of science and the world in general. There’s a large scope of features within the magazine, dishing up delicious reading treats for anybody’s interests and keeping readers up to date with the ever-developing world.

The magazine has an accompanying website, http://newscientist.com, which mirrors the magazine. Although the magazine itself is published weekly, the website seems to be a daily portal for lovers of the magazine and science, with regular updates and the facility to communicate with each other through posting comments and blogs. To read the in-depth articles, you do have to subscribe to the magazine, but there’s enough free content available to satisfy most people. Several series of books have also been published, derived from the content featured in New Scientist.

The design of the website is not far from that of the magazine, clean, simple yet full of text and images. The font is smart, classic and easy to read and a palette of blue, deep red, black, grey and white tones aid the sophistication of the magazine. The layouts do not need to be fancy as the actual excitement on the pages is presented through the articles and features. Quirky, beautiful and stylish illustrations pepper the pages of New Scientist, making a nice change from having each feature relying on a photograph. It gives the magazine a colourful, sophisticated and modern feel, and attracts art lovers. It’s just one of the ways that New Scientist inter-mingles so many subjects, pulling in readers from all interests.

The articles themselves are very rich in detail and information, hailing in knowledge from top experts and research. The New Scientist is a valuable learning tool and is genuinely interesting to read through. In the issue I read (issue 2778, 18th Sept 2010), a vast range of subjects were featured, including how an Autism drug aims to balance brain signals, IVF has best chance of success in spring, 2000-year-old pills found in Greek shipwreck, how Google Instant knows what you want, how the world’s smallest fridge could chill quantum computers and how 'off-grid' cellphone towers could save lives. One article in particular caught my eye, mainly due to it’s subject of art and optical illusion. Titled ‘Windows to the mind’, it explores how featured artists Patrick Hughes, Fra Carnevale, Domenico Remps, Claude Monet, Salavdor Dali and Wassily Kandinsky sampled techniques such as synaesthesia, photorealism, emotion and perception to ‘trick’ the audience‘s eye.

The article is flooded with expert knowledge from various neuroscientists, neurophysiologists and vision researchers, who explain how the visual tricks employed by these artists are processed through our brains and vision. It combines art with science, which is a common cross-breed of subjects, and makes for fascinating reading. The article is broken up, kicking off with an introduction, and then exploring into the six separate artists. Each featured artist has their own space on the page, there’s two features per double page spread, one that’s set within a pale sage green box, and the other left against the white page. This choice of layout breaks it up nicely, leaving you to focus on one artist at a time. Each artist has an accompanying image exampling their technique, which is discussed by the experts, and as each image and technique is so different, it’s an overall very varied article.

I was personally taken by the Dali feature, using an illusion within his work “Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire” that allows the viewer to see two possible images within one. The two nuns painted side by side under an archway in the painting can be perceived as the head of the philosopher Voltaire. The scientific explanation of how and why we perceive the two images differently is really quite interesting, explaining the brain cannot possibly process every single frame of image our eyes receive. As such, it picks out edges, contours and patterns relying upon our previous experience to flesh out the gaps. Medical imaging scans have shown two separate groups of neurons that deal with imaging and interestingly, the two groups will interpret in different ways. It is believed that this is the source of “flipping” optical illusions. I found this really intriguing, it was valuable to read how images such as these are processed through our brains, and for a change, it was nice to read an article about art that doesn’t just discuss the aesthetics of an image.

I would declare any art lover would find this article of interest, as well as the entire magazine in general. As an Illustration student, I find flicking through New Scientist inspiring, not just because of the art pieces that decorate the articles and features, but because the context of features too. I think any Graphic Communication and Illustration student would find New Scientist a source of inspiration, feeding their taste for style, imagery and layout as well as bulking out their overall knowledge and interest in the world and it’s science, which can be communicated through their own work.

As a group, we felt a rating of 7/10 was fair for the magazine. Although New Scientist is packed with interesting, varied features and gorgeous illustrations, at times, we all found it difficult to follow the text. The information was sometimes too confusing. However, the reviewed article was very insightful, and I personally felt I had learnt something new and interesting from it.

Back to school

2010-09-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

Uni has started :-)
Was set a brief for the summer to make puppets and backdrops etc to form a puppet show, using an sentence from existing novels to open with. I've branched out with Lisa the Eskimo, she's now a warrior, superhero, ninja princess who must embark upon a quest to save the Eskimo village children from the grips of an evil shapeshifter called the Ijiraq. It's styled like a graphic novel, lots of fun :-) The shows take place tomorrow, so pictures may appear.
For now, here's some samples of my puppets :D

BP Exhibition

2010-07-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

Cannot wait to see this, last year's was just amazing

http://www.npg.org.uk/index.php?id=4711

Am particularly looking forward to fawning over the Alan Rickman portrait!!

Linkkkk

2010-06-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.moillusions.com/tag/alexa-meade

How amazing is this?! People and settings painted so it looks like a painting but they're actually real! Incredible!!

http://www.alexameade.com/
<3

Blogs I love

2010-06-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

http://kjsdesign.blogspot.com/ beautiful pencil and watercolour work

http://www.theunicorndiaries.com/ some beautiful photographs

http://alloverprint.blogspot.com/ juicy colours and forms

Exhibition time!!

2010-06-07T02:47:00.000-07:00

Our end of year exhibition opened on saturday. This is my rather cluttered space. I wasn't intending on setting it out like this, but my tutor advised me to put up mounted images of the book pages and put my portfolio and all my term 1 and 2 sketchbooks out. Not impressed!

I have also just got back from uni to get my results, I scored a Distinction for the project/year :D So happy!! Roll on september for the degree :)

FMP

2010-05-19T05:16:00.001-07:00

Have been working hard on this final major project, deadline is next friday. Almost finished now. Few pics of the book and merchandise to accompany it.
I could happily make children's pop up books every day!
Have also been accepted to do the Illustration degree at the Cardiff School of Art in September :D

Eskimo Girls!

2010-03-30T03:23:00.000-07:00

2 sketches of Eskimo girls, just observation drawings really, nothing big.

Final Major Project

2010-03-28T02:25:00.000-07:00

Tis time already for the end of year, final projects. I've chosen to study children's book illustration for mine, *hopefully* my final piece will be a book, made, written and illustrated by me! I'm currently just finishing off the first round of research; history of picture books, studying other picture books and studying how to write for children. I just need to write up about a trip to London and Colchester I had, research purposes, then I can crack on with some drawings for my story! Watch this space!

Now, off to Hobbycraft, to buy pretty things to make my research book look a bit more interesting!!

Term 2

2010-03-09T09:30:00.001-08:00

I have, like zero time to update this during projects, ugh.
So term 2 is over. We had 2 projects, Ephemeral, and Place.

For the Ephemeral brief, I decided to create a journal ma de up of found, unwanted, recycled material, so cardboard, paper and fabric. The pages were made of reused papers too. I chose the work on the idea of ephemeral emotion, using happiness. I sent out a message on Facebook asking people to send me their happy photos along with the memories behind it, and using the photos, I illustrated them onto the pages, using sepia fineliners, coffee and ink. I then attached a gift tag, ticket, post it note onto the pages, and wrote out their memories onto them.

We had to make our project outcomes available for commercial use, I chose to do a campaign for the Royal Mail, encouraging people to send letters as they're more valuable in sentiment than emails and texts. So, I attached envelopes, letters and photos that I wrote based on a collection of letters and messages I had been previously sent over the years from these people. I put these on the opposite page to the illustrations. Using a photo of my journal, I then created a rough idea for a poster, in Photoshop.

Place, was literally our interpretation of place. As a hardcore daydreamer, I decided to use a place and make it unreal through imagination. After playing with ideas, I chose to focus on using woodlands as my place, and began to twist images a bit to make them daydreamy and fictional. This took forever, I kept changing my mind throughout the project. In the end I did a rough image of myself with hair flowing into trees, spotty mushrooms, flowers, birds etc. I did another 5, and 9 smaller drawings, and then created a final piece onto wood. I chose wood as obviously the material links to my place, and I wanted a nice woodgrain to work over.

I got a Merit for this term. Still not happy though.

Currently awaiting to finish my UCAS application, and building portfolio. Plus starting FMP (final major project).

Mmm

End of term one

2009-12-08T09:24:00.000-08:00

Term one has come to an end so I thought I'd share some pictures of the projects I have done over the past 3 and a bit months.

Project one: Case Study

Aim: To make a suitcase out of free material, make a lining, and make objects for inside.

I made my case from cardboard, masking tape and string, then painted it white. I then painted and drew overlapping silhouettes of objects and scenery on both sides.
I screenprinted over pink fabric, and sewed it into the case (fyi...sewing into thick cardboard = hard, painful work!!) I then sewed on little sequins and beads.
I also made objects from wet, torn, recycled paper, using original objects as a moulds and popping off the paper when set.

Project 2: The Third Man

Aim: To watch the film The Third Man and create 12 book covers in a chosen area.
I chose painting :D I had to use oil paints and create abstract, atmospheric designs, with faint typography over and in the paint.

Project 3: Obsessive Documentation

Aim: To pick an object on display at The British Museum, remake our own version using free material, and obsessively document it in different workshops over 3 weeks.

I chose an ivory handcarved bracelet with 3 deers and stag on the face, with vines and brances of ivy wrapped around the other ring of the face. I remade it by creating a cardboard ring, and bent wire to form a stag and covered both in masking tape. Then wrapped round green wire with handcrafted gold wire ivy leaves twisted on, around the cardbaord ring.
I then obsessively documented deers, stags and ivy leaves, delving into mythology and folklore of stags. I created images acrylic paints, watercolours, ink, lino and dry point etch printing, digital work via Photoshop, paper engineering, stichwork- hand and machine-, collage, pencils, fineliners, animation via Photoshop and Quicktime, fabric, 3D paper and swarovski diamonds

After christmas, I am specialising in Illustration . Our project brief is to make a box of passions, using card, paper etc. I'm super excited

Best blog ever

2009-11-25T08:05:00.001-08:00

blog.freepeople.com/craft/

So glad I'm getting a sewing machine for xmas!!

Melissa Haslam

2009-10-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

Wowowowowowow

http://melissahaslam.orionvisuals.com/

The Rainmakers

2009-09-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

My latest illustration, "The Rainmakers", watercolour and fine liner on a3 paper.

(Click for full photo)

Fantastic illustrator websites

2009-09-24T02:00:00.000-07:00

Here are a few links to some fabulous illustrator websites, enjoy :

http://www.gabrielmoreno.com/

http://wakkawa.iseenothing.com/gallery1.html

http://www.sampaints.com/

http://www.jamesjean.com/

http://www.tinaberning.de/start1.html

http://lora8.deviantart.com/

Myself

2009-09-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

I'm Layla, 24, based in Wales. I am currently studying at UWIC Cardiff School Of Art.

I will use this blog to post up projects, photos of my work and links to awesome arty websites.

For now, my DeviantArt gallery link is http://chichaboo.deviantart.com/ should you wish to see some examples of my work.

- Layla