Unicorn - Darcie Couch (784365)

                                         Unicorn - Darcie Couch (UP784365)

 Choosing an animal for this project proved difficult as many of the animals I had considered had a range of possibilities in regards to producing a final outcome. In the end I decided to study my project on a Unicorn because although finding primary resources would be difficult, I would have had a fluid approach to experimentation.

I began to work on the unicorns appearance, studying its poise and characteristics. As the Unicorn is a mythical animal it wasn't surprising to see that there were many varying illustrations/photos, showing different features in each; such as having wings or horns. These were initial studies I made using the references of what a Unicorn is described to look like. The varied mediums used and mark making explored what I felt would best successfully represent the Unicorn image.

I closely looked into comparing Horses and Unicorns. I made a study of a Horse using only white ink on brown paper. Making this study made it easier to compare the appearances of both animals, especially with their similarities in facial features.

Later on in the project I looked into more than the similarities and made both mathematical and scientific diagrams on their hooves, skulls and torsos. In the picture above I've included the hooves and shoes with their diagram labels and angular measurements. I found studying the contrast between the myth and the math fascinating because it dipped into key points of the broad projects spectrum.

Rats by AmberAtlantis

For my 'Shakespeare's animals' project I decided to focus upon the rat, as it's my favourite animal and they posses some interesting superstitious qualities, as well as similarities to the human body which are used for scientific study.

After conducting broad research into the animal such as their anatomy, behaviour, habitat and diet etc, I visited a large pet store and started producing lots of direct observational sketches. This is what helped me most in understanding their movement and behaviours. I also reviewed the texts in which rats are mentioned in Shakespeare's works, and I decided to centre my ideas around a scene in 'Tempest' where Prospero describes a boat that he fled to Italy on. This scene evolves around the superstition that rats leaving a ship in port indicates that the vessel will encounter misfortune at sea such as sinking.

With this idea in mind, I experimented with collage and 3D techniques which i could possibly use to illustrate the ship superstition, including wire sculptures wrapped in twine and wallpaper collages as shown above.

Eventually I settled for using paper mache to create the basic structure of the rat, and then I glued card triangles over this to create the fur. For my final piece I produced 2 rats; the card triangles on one were covered in ripped magazine, and the other was using a watercolour + salt technique to look like rust. Both of these symbolise neglect. 

I did some final research in rat euphemisms, where i came across the term 'rat king'. This is where rats live in an extremely cramped space, so eventually their tails become knotted together. I decided to join the tails of my two sculptures, but I did so by researching the types of knots used in sailing and made the tails out of rope to connote the boat superstition. I made the remaining features out of clay, and set the sculptures on a piece of driftwood which I found at the beach. My intention with this was to convey a narrative of the plank being a stray part of a recently sunken ship, and the rats had to escape together due to being connected at the tail. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this project and I look forward to seeing my work displayed in the Shakespeare's animals exhibition at Portsmouth Guildhall! Feel free to check out these links for some of my other art and photography work!

www.facebook.com/amberatlantis

www.youtube.com/AmberAtlantis

www.amberatlantis.blogspot.co.uk

Lucy Page - Tiger

For the Shakespeare project I decided to research tigers as I find them really interesting and mysterious. The quotes from Shakespeare's work that inspired me were first 'The tiger was generally considered the personification of remorseless cruelty' and second 'Even the rudest and the most heraldic of a tiger must have had stripes not spots'. During my research I looked at how tigers hunt and especially how they pounce. I discovered that tigers are extremely powerful animals, the largest of the cat family and very distinctive due to their stripes. Because of this they are the perfect killing machine and I decided to run with this description for inspiration for my final outcome.

I was attempting to capture the powerful roar of a tiger with this drawing

I created a lino print from the first image and printed it successfully 

Stripes are one of the most identifying characteristics of a tiger, so I experimented with just painting the stripes 

I started looking at how tigers are killing machines, to show this I used cogs to create a half tiger half machine outcome

Final outcome: 

For my final piece I chose to use my drawing of a tiger crouching ready to pounce with cogs added to its upper leg muscles to show the pent up power in the muscles.

After the fire had gone out, I made a small phoenix and painted it in the traditional colours a phoenix would feature. I placed it behind the burnt wire as a symbol of the phoenix starting a new life. the reason why the phoenix can live forever as it was not tempted by Eve to eat fruit from the tree God forbid, therefore it was granted to live forever.

For my animal, I had chosen the phoenix because I wanted to choose a mythical animal to give myself more space to imagine what I could create.

At first I had tried to cover my phoenix wire model with hairspray and then set it on fire. However it didn't work at all due to the weather conditions, even though there was hardly any wind it was still difficult to set alight despite spraying a lot of hairspray onto the wire. But then I wrapped the wire with tissue and then set it alight with BBQ fluid.

After painting on BBQ fluid onto the wire phoenix model it set alight almost instantly and burned extremely well. I wanted to set my work on fire as this is the moment when the phoenix would be reborn, setting itself on fire from its old age. The phoenix was said to have lived for one thousand years before it would set itself alight.

Shakespeare's Animals - At the Guildhall, Portsmouth 2016

Josie Keable - Walrus

For my Shakespearean animal, I focused on walruses. This was mainly because they're quite an odd animal, and you don't really see or hear much about them so I figured it'd be interesting to find out more. I found out they had quite a high spiritual profile for the people of the Arctic and mainly focused on this aspect within my work, as there wasn't much related to Shakespeare other than a description of what they looked like. I eventually started looking at Act 4 Scene 1 of Macbeth and started playing round with the idea of the witches wearing walrus themed masks. From these masks I started making colourful animated gifs to bring back the idea of spirituality and Shamanic rituals. Eventually I delved into the idea of these animated walrus masks being like a sort of alternative 'God' for people in a post apocalyptic world and made another, much longer, animated gif from this.

An initial drawing, exploring spirituality

The first gif I made, only changing the eyes

Another gif.

Final outcome.

The two figures are part of this 'walrus' religion and bow down to the masks

(This doesn't continually loop)

Georgie Underwood- Dragon

I decided to focus on the dragon as my Shakespeare animal, as I am interested in fantasy as a genre. Dragons have always intrigued me, due to their importance in some modern cultures, as  well as in classic mythology and legends. With this in mind, I researched what 'dragon' meant, as a word and as a creature; the main focus though, was how the animal is portrayed in Shakespeare. The Shakespeare quotes that I chose to explore, were "sparkling eyes"(King Henry VI, Act 1, Scene 1) and "come not between a dragon and his wrath"(King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1). To portray this, I looked at why a dragon would be wrathful; researching this idea, I found that the main reason for a dragons anger, would be when gold is stolen from its treasure hoard.  I decided to experiment further, thinking of ways of how to illustrate the idea of a dragons eyes being "sparkling" whilst also showing a picture of destruction and anger. The result of this, was an image of a village burning as the dragon watches- implying that the dragon was seeking revenge on whoever stole his gold.

Experiment with scraper foil

Adapting the final outcome on Photoshop, by removing some of the clarity and changing the colour.

Final outcome
The dragon watches over the destruction it has caused.
This piece shows the result of the dragons wrath- a village being burnt to the ground.

Second Final outcome
I decided to create a secondary outcome, that works almost as a 'prequel' to my final outcome.
This piece shows the human in the midst of the dragon's hoard, waking the beast after having stolen gold.

Shakespeare's Animals Exhibition

We are very excited to have now installed a new group exhibition piece for Shakespeare's Animals, part of the upcoming Much Ado about Portsmouth Festival (maap.port.ac.uk) marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

The work is a large scale group student piece and depicts some of the (over 4000!) animals which Shakespeare alluded to in his writings and will be gracing one wall of the Portsmouth Guildhall's Freda Swain room from now until 7th June 2016. During that time, Portsmouth Cultural Trust tells us, thousands of visitors will be able to see and read about the work and the students, and we hope, through coming to this blog, be able to give us feedback too. We think the diversity and talent of our first year students is well represented in this group show, as well as the explorative and questioning approach to illustration which is central to the BA (Hons) Illustration course here at Portsmouth.

We will also have the chance to celebrate with an opening event on Friday April 22nd at 6pm - 7.45 in the Guildhall, Freda Swain room. Please let us know if you'd like to come along!

My Dog Sighs

Lost and Found workshop

Many thanks to My Dog Sighs, who joined us today for a workshop and tasked the first years with finding a discarded item which they could up cycle into a characterful animal.

They returned with a wide array of found items to transform into original artworks and then return to the original location, photograph and leave behind, to be found and possibly kept by a passer by. Inspired by artworks shown by My Dog Sighs the students were introduced to the concept behind Free Art Friday, a global community of artists creating work which is returned and left for any member of the public to take home and enjoy.

The weeks so far spent studying the characteristics of the animals is becoming more apparent in the pieces the students produced.

Drawing in the air

Researching into animals according to Shakespeare is yielding some fascinating results; you should never come between a dragon and its wrath, rats would desert the vessel described in The Tempest and the goat is coming across very cheekily. The next stage for the students is to vigorously research and develop ideas to convey some of these results, how can wrath, desertion and cheekiness be conveyed with a drawing, a sculpture, an animation or a photograph?

This workshop involved 'drawing' with wire of varying thicknesses (and it is easier said than done) to encourage the students to explore spacial and gestural properties they could employ in their explorations with conveying their animal and the specific focus they are working towards

.

SHAKESPEARE'S Animals - the first workshop

Welcome back all our first years after what was hopefully a lovely (and well earned) Christmas break. Today we started the new project 'Shakespeare's Animals' (The Illustrated Menagerie's focus this year) with a warm up workshop involving charades, a Mexican wave, some 'exquisite corpses' and label line work.