Balloon Snake - My Dog Sighs Workshop

I created this piece in a Level 4 workshop with a visiting artist called My Dog Sighs, where we had to collect a piece of rubbish from the street and then turn it into something new, placing it back where we found it afterwards. I created this snake from an old balloon, using the remaining stick to create a body and head and then using the remains of the balloon to create the snake's tongue.

Hannah Lewington - Wolverine

For the Research Methodology project, I decided to look at the Wolverine as it had not been done before and it is relatively unknown to most people (apart from the Marvel character from X-Men). The Wolverine is an elusive animal that lives in Canada, Norway, Finland, Russia and some states in America. It is an animal that has little known about it due to the fact that they're constantly on the move, travelling up to 20km a day to scavenge for food. They have been known to take down prey much larger than them such as caribou and even polar bears, with a similar ferocity to its African cousin the Honey Badger.

I decided to focus on the Wolverine's paws in particular for this project due to their sheer size compared to the size of the Wolverine itself. This then became part of exploring the idea of the Wolverine's journey every day in search of food. I therefore created a variety of works incorporating this concept, using a 1:1 scale throughout.

Illustrated Menagerie - SPACE Gallery 2015

George Hinchliffe - Tree Frog lighter

Made as part of level 4's "My Dog Sighs" workshop, this green lighter found discarded among the hedges longed for something more, to become a "Red eyed tree frog" and with a little bit of paint and cardboard his dream came true, jumping back out into world a beautiful (all be it flammable) little frog.

Little Monster

My Dog Sighs Workshop

An empty cigarette packet found flung into a park, transformed into a little chomping monster who was soon returned to his home for someone else to discover.

Grizzly Bear - Octavia Herdson

My chosen animal was the brown bear or grizzly bear as they're more commonly known as.

To me these creatures are incredible, their strength and power is phenominal as is their will to protect their young and their territory.

 After a lot of research I discovered people either described bears as fearsome or cuddly.

However I have come to realise that both of these are in fact wrong; the bear is simply misunderstood. It's a wild animal and should be respected. So I decided to make an animation of a two-faced coin spinning with both the fearsome and cuddly side of the bear, to illustrate 'misunderstood' in this context.

'There's what you expect a bear to do and then there's what a bear does. Sometimes the two don't match up"

Sarah Starr

I chose to look at the Magpie for this unit.

 They are beautiful, intelligent creatures which seem similar to us humans in that they mate for life, are protective of their family, enjoy attention and affection and can recognise themselves in a mirror.

I love the way they use things they find, are adaptive to their environment and eat things that other animals discard or would otherwise go to waste.

I wanted to make an image that would illustrate their resourcefulness. I used found and recycled objects to reflect this.

Bearded Dragon - Leah Keatley-Phoenix

Pencil Sketch

3Doodler 

Pencil Sketches

Final Piece 

My chosen animal was a Bearded Dragon. What particularly interested me was their shape, skin texture and their ability to change colour. I was especially happy with the 3Doodler experiment. If I would've had more time I would have loved to experiment in more detail, even making an actual 3D model of a Bearded Dragon, however, this would have been too time consuming. The 3Doodler really described the Bearded Dragons size which worked well. I decided for my final piece to focus on 'What is a healthy Bearded Dragon?' to show owners what they need to look out for if their Bearded Dragon was to become unwell. I thought this would be a good idea as it offers humour but with useful, factual information.

Workshop with Los Dave

Earlier this week Los Dave worked with the first years to explore the movement and balance of the animals being studied in our current unit 'Research Methodology' and express it in found materials, (namely barbecue grills, wire, sticks and string) He outlined an initial modelling technique using Blu Tac to capture the movement in 3 dimensions, before developing it using the intended media.

For more info on Los Dave see www.losdave.bigcartel.com

My Dog Sighs workshop

This week there has been a really inspiring workshop run by My Dog Sighs about upcycling a piece of found flotsam and jetsam and reworking it into a character and returning it to where it was found to fend for itself. Many of the first years developed animal characters from their found piece - we are looking forward to seeing the photographs taken of them back in the place they were found.

For more info about the man behind the workshop see; mydogsighs.co.uk

Illustrated Menagerie Exhibition

Interview with the University News.

Watch an interview with three final year students exhibiting in the Menagerie. 

Illustrated Menagerie Exhibition

The posters and leaflets for the exhibition have been designed and produced by our final year students Dale Silvester, Paige Jones and Ollie Tubb and hand screen printed in the print workshop. Big thanks to all of you involved and for your highly professional approach.

Meet all the artists involved in the exhibition at this Friday's opening event in Space gallery - Eldon Building, Winston Churchill Avenue, Portsmouth PO1 2DJ

See more of the event and reserve a place here;