Brownies

I had my first day volunteering with a group of Brownies in Chapel Allerton, Leeds. I was slightly nervous beforehand, I was worried all the volunteers would be old women and wouldn't take to me. However, I was pleasantly suprised when I met the group leader, Hannah, who is 24, a graduate of leeds university. Along with Hannah were 2 other volunteers; Linda and Michelle. The group of Brownies is fairly small, they were unable to take on anymore girls due to the lack of volunteers in the area.

The theme of the meeting was 'feeling happy'.
First of all, we all sat in a circle and shared our news of the week. Hannah, asked the girls to introduce themselves to me as we went around. I then introduced myself, told them a little about myself and showed them some of my work.
We then played a game called 'friendship web'. Using a large ball of wool, we took it in turns to shout someones name out, throw the ball of wool in thier direction and exchange a compliment. You would hold onto the piece of string before throwing again, thus making a web. This also proved a good start to learning the girls names.
Page threw the ball of wall in my direction "Emily, because she is a good artist", and then Kianna, "Emily because she is beautiful".
:)

We then got into pairs, given a card with an emotion written on and were told to go away and practice acting the emotion out. I was paired with a lovely and quite shy girl called Cleo. We had to act out 'caring'. We quickly worked out how to do this so I had time to have a little chat with her and she told me about her favourite school subjects.
We returned to the group and everyone took it in turns to act out thier emotions, I can assure you some of these girls were oscar-worthy.

The session ended by everyone taing it in turns to name one thing that makes them happy. "My cat" "Drawing" "my Brothers" "Going on trips"

One girl called Neve approched me at the end and told me she would bring in her drawings for me to look at next week.


I really enjoyed my first day with the Brownies, and will be returning same time next week.

Doodlefest

Went down to Subculture on Friday for Doodlefest, a day of live illustration and cupcakes. All the artists had been chosen beforehand to prepare murals but by the end of the day most people had took it upon themselves to get involved and I was suprised to have not seen one penis drawn on the walls. There was a lot of lovely work, and it turned out to be a really fun day with some great live music, lots of beer and lots of cake.

Final Major Project

I will be creating a series of books on the theme of animals. My illustrative interests have always surrounded the theme of animals, and aspiring to reach a young audience so this collection of books will reflect those factors.
When I say 'collection', It does not dictate that these books will be similar in size, shape or form but thier similarities will lie in thier contents; my illustrations surrounding the theme of animals and wildlife.


I have recently become fascinated with bears and came across a book in Oxfam from which I have been drawing from:



My main sources of material for drawing come from secondary sources, such as books. Then I used textured/ patterned papers that I have collected from old books, envelopes, recycled paper, and wallpaper, and use this to take the on the main shape of my ilustration before adding more layers of paper, then ink and pen on top of the image. Then I use photoshop to get rid of any imperfections, that is about as far as my computer use goes, as I am very much a tactile artist with incompetent computer skills.

I mocked up the order of the book by using a few sides of folded A4, although the final one will be a lot smaller. I will be attempting to finish this book within the next couple of days, all according to how quick I can pick up indesign, here are a few images from it:

Sophie Calle

I recently purchased Sophie Calle's M'as-tu vue? from Amazon. The book is a collection of images, writings and memoirs from her life as a conceptual artist. I found it's contents so intimate and profound, reading it felt like getting to know a person rather than reading a book. Her work appeals to me as its importance is in the journey of creating the piece, and the meaning behind it, rather than focusing the attention to its outcome. One of my favourite (and well-known) pieces of her work is 'Suite vénitienne' (Please follow me), in which Calle took on the roll of a detective and chose to follow strangers on the street 'for the pleasure of following them, not because they particularly intrested me', making notes of there actions, taking photos of them and listening to thier conversations. Her subjects become involved in her work unknowingly and possibly unwillingly. Aside from the fascinating and intimate stories it contains, it is also a rather beautiful publication, printed on a mixture of size/colour/textured papers and encased in a padded cover. Best 30 dogs I've spent in a long while.