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;

Call for Submissions - Illustrated Menagerie Exhibition

We would like to invite you to submit artwork for our upcoming exhibition: 'Illustrated Menagerie’. The Illustrated Menagerie project itself  is coming up to its 5th birthday now and will be holding an exhibition of Illustrated Menagerie works, to which we would like to invite you to submit some work. Deadline for submission is Monday 15th December.

If you would be interested in this please find the exhibition brief and all relevant details. Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have. We look forward to hearing from you!