Final call for contributions

See more about We Shine festival 2022

Fantastic opportunity to be a part of We Shine Festival 2022!
Final call for animal-themed artwork

Have you got animal themed artwork that could be included in an exhibition as part of this November’s festival? Last year’s festival attracted 80,000 visitors, so be a part of it this year!

We are looking for animal-themed;

• Animated GIFs
• Short sequences of images
• Short animations (up to 45 seconds)
• Imagery in layers

A still print of the artwork will be installed at a permanent public location at one of four sites in Portsmouth for the festival itself and beyond, and we will be using augmented reality to show the digital side of it.

What would we need from you?

• Video or moving image file; .gif, .mov, .mp4 format or A sequence of still images; .jpg, .png format or A layered Photoshop or Procreate file; .psd format - sound can be included too
• A good quality image for print; 300 dpi, sized to fit within 220 mm x 220 mm
• A short artist bio, description of the work, the name you would want to be promoted under and socials/website etc for contacts. These details would be available to viewers of the work.

Interested?

Submissions deadline Friday 4th November 2022 - nicola.hay@port.ac.uk

We Shine Festival 2022

We are looking forward to We Shine Festival 2022, and thrilled to be creating an Augmented Reality Illustrated Animal trail. We will be showcasing our students' work, university staff work and work from a range of artists, designers and illustrators. 

Animal illustrations will be found around Portsmouth which, when viewed through a smartphone, will come to life with a digitally augmented layer.

See We Shine Festival for more info.

We Shine 17 - 19 November 2022

Call for contributions

Illustrated Menagerie AR exhibition

Calling all artists, animators and illustrators interested in nature, animals and the environment.

We will be hosting an augmented art exhibition, in the guise of a scavenger hunt, as part of We Shine Festival 2022.  https://www.weshineportsmouth.co.uk/ 

The festival will take place November 17 - 20th and we will be providing one of the interactive installations.

We are keen to hear from artists interested to take part with moving imagery, or sequential imagery, with or without sound, which would be seen as a digital augmented overlay when viewing a still image of the work using an app.

We will be handling printing of the material work (so you won’t need to send anything by post!) as the 3 locations for the exhibited work will be outdoors around Portsmouth. Work will be fully credited and linked to you online.

Register your interest by email to

nicola.hay@port.ac.uk

Evolution of the musteloidea - Ventsislava Neykova

Evolution, raccoons and red pandas. This animation shows the evolutionary cycle and connection of these musteloidea animals. Although they are different from each other, research shows that they are very closely related and come from the same root family.

Read more about this work and other animation and sequential pieces under the Sequential Illustration tab above

Can't Stop Animal Nature - Lily Milan

Humans have trained dogs and specifically Labradors for centuries to follow our every command, however, their animals instincts are stronger at the end of the day. More in the Sequential Illustration page

Butterfly in the sheet music - Soo Choi

The Ulysses butterfly. I used sheet music imagery to show information about three ways butterflies communicate; physical action, sight and chemicals. The environment that the butterfly lives in and it's life cycle is also visualised and a repeat symbol shows the song is repeating.

Human Evolution; The Hominins - Chido

Homo Erectus, Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis holding tools related to their era

Human evolution and the development of human history using three of the final stages of human evolution highlighting an item they would be holding, such as the Homo Erectus holding a wooden or quartz weapon, the Neanderthal holding a small axe, and the human holding a phone.

Moth's Dinner - Chloe O'Shea

Lino print narrative about a mischievous clothes-eating moth.

The Ringed-Tailed Lemur - Run lemur Run - Wuraola Ogunmowo

This work studies the movement of lemurs, the title is'Run Lemur Run' because lemurs in general are endangered animals in Madagascar. Their population rate continues to decrease every day and their lives have resulted into running away from their homes and finding it harder and harder to survive as well as keep their young alive. This is because of activities like deforestation, poaching hunting and even climate change.

Snakes in Captivity - Jake Killgallon

Snakes in captivity exploring snake welfare and the problems with the snake trade with around 70% of snakes dying before even reaching the stores. This outcome combines both the notions of captivity and freedom within one image, which can be viewed through two different colour filters, the red drawing can be seen in the blue filter and the blue drawing in the red filter.

Tiger Run Cycle - Jenna Beames

I researched big cats and their different characteristics and how this differs between each species. This lead me to settle on tigers, which are the largest of the big cats and are extremely powerful due to large musculature in their forelegs. I wanted to create a run cycle of a tiger with each movement broken down into about 21 frames.

Alice Fynn - Mimic Optopus

 

Zine and Augmented Artwork video

This zine is a children's book-inspired zine on the Mimic Octopus' predator evasion techniques which include mimicry, (colour and pattern) camouflage, burying, jet propulsion and the use of ink as a diversion to hide from and fool predators. The zine also shows how the Mimic Octopus hunts and aims to educate about these behaviours in a fun and engaging way, aimed at 5-9 year olds. The last page is augmented with animated imagery.

Food Chains Under Threat - Annie Heard

Page spread for a nature magazine - Food Chains Under Threat 

The intention for my project was to symbolise an ocean food chain within a single image, with the animals along the chain being afflicted by an environmental issue caused by humanity: the fish is caught in a fishing net to represent overfishing; the penguin has plastic can ring holders stuck around its neck to represent plastic pollution; and the orca is tangled in netting to represent both over-hunting and accidental entanglement. I wanted to signify that humanity is having a devastating effect on animals on every trophic level of the food chain and that this is causing an imbalance in the natural order, therefore threatening endangerment for many species.

AR experiment - See Kirsten's image through your phone using the Artivive app!

 

                             Artwork credit; Kirsten Randall

View the above artwork using the Artivive app to see it come alive

Ogre-Faced Spider Hunting Behaviour - Tara Hughes

 

I chose to theme my sequence around spiders as they are often represented as somewhat distasteful. They repel most people with their intimidatingly disproportionate bodies and legs. But the spider can be beautiful. Their webs are intricate structures that are used as skilful instruments to capture and entangle. My sequence is an expression of art and science, based on my research into contemporary and historic scientific illustrations.

Deforestation - Natasha Cole

 

For this project I started looking into orangutans and how their homes are being threatened by the mass production of palm oil.

Bats as Pollinators - Jazmin Johnson

Throughout this project, I researched bats and their importance within our ecosystem. I looked into many different conservations of Bats, and one which stood out the most to me was “Bats as Pollinators. This animated loop depicts the importance of pollination, and how “Bee’s have the day shift, Bats have the night shift”.

The Evolution of Pugs - Paige Y

This project is about the evolution of pugs, looking at why people believe they shouldn’t be bred any longer due to their breathing and bone issues.

The wild animal in your house - Teddy Hunter

I looked into domestic cats and how they have evolved to retain a lot of the characteristics and traits of their wild big cat cousins. I found out that compared to today’s domestic dogs cats haven’t changed much genetically from their ancestors. I wanted to show the two sides of the domestic cat in this zine, the wild and the tame and how they seem to coexist in our furry friends. I used both drypoint etching and ink and brush to create the two styles of illustration, joined together by dos á dos binding. There is a cat flap between the two sections to show the transition from wild predator to tame lap cat that happens with our domestic cats.

See more students' work under the 'Sequential Illustration' tab on the main menu above

Procreate animation for Inktober21. 

The prompt was 'Raven' - the frames are hand drawn and inked in layers then exported as an animated gif. 

Sequential Illustration; A brand new module! The following posts are projects which illustrate something sequential about an animal

Ruby Gregory

This sequence depicts a squirrel trying to get to the food inside a squirrel proof bird feeder which is weight sensitive. meaning that when a squirrel attempts to jump onto it, it will spin stopping it from getting into the birds feeder.

The sequence shows that a squirrel won’t give up and will do and try anything they can to get their food, which I illustrated with a GIF I created on a loop to show a squirrels life on the struggles they would go through to get food.

I'd made leaf prints to use as a stencil on the squirrels to show its nature and where they live. I thought the effect of having the squirrels as leaves looked like another sequence of leaves blowing through the wind.

Emma Evans

I decided to look closely into genetic modification and evaluating the extent of understanding what is too far? I wanted to portray the aspect that mice are used as the first testing stages as they are similar to humans and are of a mass population, personally I find that this isn’t a good enough reason to just make them glow in the dark!
Genetic modification is getting too much, it is now accessible to everyone and anyone, through a kit you can buy online; how many more glowing in the dark animals are we going to have? My aim was to create an expressive sequential illustration that metaphorically demonstrates the unnatural extent of making an animal glow. My final piece would be seen in a newspaper or as a poster.

Michael Dymock

Throughout this project I have explored a number of different sealife animals before settling on seahorses. I started the project looking at their ‘predawn dance’ within their courtship process, however my focus shifted once discovering their depleting numbers through ocean pollution and use within the medical field. My goal for my sequential illustration was to create an empathic response and send a clear and concise message of marine life conservation. I believe this message is strengthened when examining the grungy and desaturated colour pallet used (a clear juxtaposition from their usual vibrancy), along with imagery of medical equipment, ocean litter and metallic features within the image.