Mother's day card

As a little break from uni work, I decided to make a papercut mother's day card for my mum. Using an old family photo, I recreated a scene including my mum, my sister and I. The card was A6 and I tried to recreate the environment with simple shapes and details. Here are some images of the result...

Making furniture for Collaboration piece

I have been getting on with making furniture for the set. Here are some images of my progress so far. The chairs are meant for the lounge area in the foreground of the set. I have tried to stick to a small colour palette to avoid the set looking overly busy and garish. 

Interview with My Grandma

Whilst visiting home, I made a trip to Wiltshire to see my Grandmother. I had planned earlier in the project that i'd like record my grandparents talking about their travels as research and perhaps even incorporate them into the final show. I asked questions concerning the 6 different areas of their Trinidad experience and these were her responses.

If these sound clips do not work please click here.
Why did you decide to travel by Boat?



Homesickness/Leaving people behind



Socialising on the Journey



The First House



The Expat Community


"Everything (was) so bright and dramatic"

Shopping and Lifestyle


"Of course the markets had lovely fruit and vegetables"
"I used to made all my clothes".

Playing Sports in Trinidad




Playing Hockey for the National Trinidad Team



Raising Children

"Jeremy could swim at 9 months old...he was a little fish"

Fond memories
 
"Friends for life...I write letters all over the world''
"Life was easy...we were young and carefree and in love, very much so i suppose"

Talking to my Grandma really reminded me of why I started this project in the first place. The personal connection to my current work has really pushed my practice. I feel really passionately about keeping their memories exciting and interesting for a new audience. It made me consider how I could possibly make my papercuts more personal as the papercuts with coloured and patterned paper can tend to be sterile and maybe doesn't have the 'homey' feel I'd like it to have.

Collaboration with Joe Mackenzie for 'I Made it With My Hands' Exhibition

I have agreed to take part in an upcoming Illustration exhibition organised by three fellow third year students. This is a chance for the craft-based illustrators to showcase their work. We have been asked to produce approx. two A3 images or 1 sculpture ECT. The only requirement- NO DIGITAL PRINTS.

I see this as an opportunity to make something a little different and do a collaboration with another illustrator. I have always admired Joe's work, and currently we have both been reconstructing vintage imagery, him through abstract collage compositions of interiors and me through paper characters and backgrounds. I also see this as an opportunity to experiment with 3D sets, putting my papercuts into a theatrical context.

I don't want this to directly connected to my trinidad work, but a separate mini project to present in my portfolio.

Over the week, Joe and I have talked over possible ideas that we could realise in our collaborative piece. Both of us agreed that it would be interesting to explore the role reversal of men and women in the 1950s/1960s. The idea is to make the man into a house husband busy in the kitchen whilst the wife (a business woman and the main breadwinner) chills in the lounge drinking a beer. Joe agreed to make two walls and middle counter whilst I would make the characters and various pieces of furniture for the characters to interact with.

Here a few images from our first day working together....

Research- The image I used as reference for the house husband was a image of a traditional 1950s man in a Household magazine. 

The making of the House Husband...

After prior experience with photographing the papercuts in the town centre, I thought it would be wise to give the paper cut a stronger base to make it easier to support later down the line.

Joe scanning through magazines to find appropriate images for the piece.

This is how Joe's wall looked at the end of the first day.

Once I got home, I continued with making the female character for the collaboration. The structure of her body was actually very quick to make as I cut down the number of layers needed. I think having less layers looks much more effective as layers such as the kneecaps that are basically cut outs shapes stand out well.

`i particularly like the patterned paper I chose for the dress, as the texture was very tactile. Even though I'd rather that the audience didn't touch the paper cuts, I think the texture makes it look that little bit more precious and interesting to look at.

Unfortunately I am having to go away for the next week, therefore Joe and I will not be able to work alongside each other. However we plan to continue making and send each other messages attaching photographs.

Sunbather characters finished

Please see sketchbook to see process in full of the making of these papercuts....

I am overall really pleased with these pieces of work. There is a definite consistency throughout and I was impressed how many papercuts I was able to create in the past three days. 

Sunbather Scene: Papercuts in progress

With the last month looming, I decided to focus my attention on making imagery for final images. My making process is very long and each scene I make will need me to spend hours on different elements: characters, backgrounds and other objects if needed.

I have sought out different pinpoints of their time in Trinidad:

- Their journey from England by boat.
- Their first house and its surroundings.
-Lifestyle in Trinidad/ The expat community.
-Working in Trinidad
-Raising a Child in Trinidad
- Sport

Starting with the first, I decided to start with a sunbather scene on the boat deck. This I felt pinpoints how they already started to experience tropical climates on their journey to Trinidad. They are surrounded by some company. This gives the sense that they are not the other ones moving abroad and there was expat community that they were joining.  Without looking too much into, I think it will be a cheery image that will introduce the scenes well.

Note: My technique has taken a different route. It was noted by a few of my peers that my current drawing out of each character, then splitting them into layers before even starting with the paper construction was perhaps a pointless activity. It was suggested that I trace straight from the image to ensure the right proportions and then work out the layers from there. I was very reluctant to do so at first as I felt it betrayed my ability to draw. However, after trying the tracing technique on the third character of this scene, I realised this technique was much quicker. In the end the final product of each image is the papercut. I was basically copying the shapes of the people in the photograph anyway. 

The Making Process!

The start of a new week = A new papercut

Reference Photo- exploring how my grandparents brought a young child up in Trinidad.

The studio is very quiet today as its now the first week of the easter break. I took advantage of the space by setting up a tripod to document the making process of my papercuts. My making process has also developed dramatically, therefore its nice to showcase my improved technique. 

(GIF)

Photographing my papercuts in Bournemouth Town Centre

Following my earlier experimentation with photographing my papercuts in plant pots in the studio, I decided to make the most of the beautiful weather in Bournemouth and take some photos in the gardens and the beach. To give them more support, I glue-gunned backing and stands to some of  my pieces. This exercise did make me realise that some of my papercuts were weaker when made to stand up and the legs and feet were fairly delicate compared to more layers on the top half of the body,


In the town centre, I found that in reality photographing light papercuts in a windy and altogether temperamental environment probably wasn't the best idea. Also the context of my papercuts became a little muddled due to the recognisable  landmarks of bournemouth such as the balloon in the gardens and the beach huts on the beach. I also had some difficulty with the scale of the papercuts compared to passing by people. These ruined the illusion of the characters in a different world/time. I really enjoyed this activity though and think that other work may have a different outcome especially if the context of the artwork and photographed backgrounds were better connected.

The above image is my favourite out of this collection due to the well matched colour palette of the paper cut and the huts. The only issue is the scale as really the huts in the background and the sand in the foreground should be much smaller in comparison to give a sense of depth to the scene.

Type for website

Similar to my 'Emma Sears' type for my logo, I thought it would be a nice touch to have hand rendered type for each page. I have spent the past two days drawing out the type by hand and editing them in photoshop. This was definitely longer than I anticipated and perhaps unnecessary...

I created each of these text images with photoshop. Using scanned images of the ink type, I would place the texture over the top. I would start by hiding the textured layer, then using the select tool i would grab the edges of the type. I'd reveal the textured layer and the selection would be seen. Copy and paste tool allowed me create a new textured type. This would be placed on top of the ink type, therefore there would be a shadow behind the textured type. This technique was both quick and effective. I like the consistency of this type in coincidence with my logo work.