Charlotte Topcott

For my project based upon animals within Shakespeare's plays I chose a stag. To describe this animal I chose words such as; wild, proud, leader, mysterious and delicate. As i developed further understanding of the animal I wanted to portray it through the use of materials to suggest these traits. I chose to use natural products such as woods and glass to reflect the wild aspect of the creatures personality. I also chose to reflect the animals delicacy through the use of glass painting and developed this design so that one piece was intact and another was smashed. This reflected the vulnerability of the animal and although proud can be broken.

Wood cut using laser photographed to show how the animal can blend within its surroundings and make itself unseen

Wood cut laser development to compare how different types of laser could affect the outcome of the design. This design could be used to represent the idea of hierarchy and how the more dominant or darker cut design would be more of a leader. 

Painted glass to suggest that the animal is fragile and needs to be handled delicately, also suggests that the animal is used as a mere decoration and it is us who are the ones who put these animals at risk. 

Jack Bruce

Typographical piece to accompany images.

Final image selection.

Shakespearian text reference.

Sketchbook page.

My submission focused on the symbolism of the lark and nightingale in Romeo and Juliet. Each bird has a different song one for the day and one for the night. They represent the journey of forbidden love encountered by the protagonists, which I have attempted to portray in a graphical and contemporary style.

Georgie Robjant - Magpie

For our research methodology project I chose to do the animal, Magpie, I chose this animal as I feel that it holds a reputation with it, I love a story behind anything and the magpie definitely delivers that, I love how such a small animal can hold so much meaning and can be seen as such a superstitious creature

                                      Here is some sketch book work of some artist research
                                                   that influenced my Magpie creations.

                                  Here is one of my final A3 pieces I created on book pages

Here is the second part of my final piece on book pages.

Here is some experimental work I did with A watercolour magpie

and a dream catcher.

Candy Smith- Fox.

'I was as lazy as a hog, sneaky as a fox, as greedy as a wolf, as mad as a dog and as ruthless as a lion.' King Lear, Act 3, Scene 4.

I chose a fox as the animal for my research methodology unit. I was particularly interested in the effect of Fox hunting on the fox population and to raise awareness of keeping the ban intact. I wanted to reverse the roles of the fox and the hound, instead the fox would be hunting the hounds. I first decided to look at the fox itself and different aspects that make it distinctive as a species.

Fine Liner Study. 

I then decided to look more into fox hunting and reversing the roles by placing the fox himself in the traditional British fox hunting uniform.

Watercolour and Fine liner Study. 

Finally for my final piece I wanted to show my chosen words; Agile, Handsome, Elegant, Regal and Cunning. For this I created a watercolour piece as well as additions of fine liner and coloured pencil as well as a salt and watercolour wash background.

This project allowed me to look at the anatomy of the animal and look at more social issues concerning the species as well as looking at more cultural references. I found this uni very helpful in allowing me to divide my time between research and visual working. 

Karen Li - Dragon

For my Research Methodology Project I decided to do it on Dragon, As they are very fierce and scary features recorded from myths and legends. I looked into the history of cultures stories of dragons, from this I found that origin of the legends of dragon emerged in the course of Chinese history. The Chinese believed that dragon was a benevolent creatures with powers to bring rain and good luck to the people.

In this project I experiment from wire modelling, origami dragons, Lino prints and 3D clay modelling. From those I found that my Lino prints came out very successful, which I decide to use my continuous line drawing made from my clay modelling into Lino as a little illustrated book.

Two pages of fold up book (Final Piece) 

Shakespeare's Animals - At the Guildhall, Portsmouth 2016

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!

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

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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. 

Welcome to the Shakespearean Menagerie - Shakespeare's Animals

Today the Illustrated Menagerie was interviewed by Hannah Sperring, Creative writing student at the University of Portsmouth, who's now penned an exciting piece about our involvement in the upcoming festival in Portsmouth celebrating all things Shakespeare; Much Ado about Portsmouth. We have a number of things in the pipeline for exploring animals this year with this new focus of how Shakespeare himself employed their characteristics to describe characters in his plays.

Our remit ordinarily involves illustrating animals which are actually living and breathing, but this year we will embrace the mythical and legendary creatures also to try to capture some of the range of the creatures which featured in plays and sonnets penned four hundred (plus) years ago.

We are also lucky enough to have been offered a very exciting opportunity to exhibit of some of the work as a group student show, in the Freda Swain room at Portsmouth Guildhall.

Exhibition Dates: 12 March - 7 June 2016 

Much Ado!

The Illustrated Menagerie is now dipping its toes into the writings of Shakespeare for inspiration to work with, as part of the upcoming Much Ado About Portsmouth Festival (see maap.port.ac.uk for more details)

Portsmouth-based festival events marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. The festival will run from the 18th to the 23rd April 2016 (culminating on the day of Shakespeare's death).