Robert Johnson Project

First final image from the Robert Johnson project.

Banjo Man

Blues project

Some practice images from a big project inspired by the legend of blues guitarist Robert Johnson selling his soul to the Devil.

Papercut influenced by old medieval woodcut.

David Sharpley

From my University Challenged portrait series.

Jesus!

Papercut, digitally coloured, inspired by a 15th century Medieval Woodcut.

Because no one else has..

Seen loads of these versions of the Keep Calm and Carry On poster, thought Id jump on the bandwagon.

Silvernose

Illustrations for the Italian folk tale 'Silvernose' collected and told by Italo Calvino.
The Devil tricks three sisters into working for him at his house. He forbids them to enter a certain room, and when the first two sisters do, they open the door to hell and get trapped. The third and youngest sister manages to save them, and then tricks the devil into taking them back home hidden in laundry bags.
Papercuts with digital colour.

Un Lucero

A present for mi abuela. Papercut. Poem by Federico Garcia Lorca, translates as:

There is a tranquil star
A star without eyelids
Where?
A star...
In the sleepy waters of the pond.

Penguin 'Great Ideas' covers

Five book cover designs for Penguins 'Great Ideas' series.

'Fireworks' by Robert Van Egghen illustrated

As a little project i was asked to illustrated this poem for an anthology of creative writing students' work at the UEA. The abstract nature of the language and imagery of poetry influenced these paper cutouts.

and here they are with the poem

Swan Lake stage design

This project was inspired by the week i spent in February out and about in London. During this week i saw The Russian State Ballet of Siberia's production of Swan Lake, as well as the Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes exhibition, and the Theatre and Performance sections of the Victoria and Albert. Up until this point i had been fairly ignorant of both theatre and ballet, and these experiences, as well as seeing the play The Woman in Black, opened my eyes to the artistic merit of theatre, ballet, and in particular stage design. While the brilliant use of minimal staging, props, and clever uses of sound and lighting of The Woman in Black to achieve a fully immersive effect was great, unfortunately the design of the ballet wasn't nearly as effective.

So for this project i endeavored to design the staging in such a way that I thought was respectful to the traditional side of the ballet, and at the same time gave it more of a contemporary look. I also wanted to reference back to the folk tale visuals that the story is based on, and give it my own twist.

The following images are photos of the maquettes i made for each of the 4 acts or scenes of the ballet.

Act 1 takes place in the castle grounds. Prince Siegfried, must choose a wife at his birthday ball. Upset he cannot marry for love he escapes to the forest, following a flock of swans overhead.

In act 2 Siegfried meets Odette, a beautiful woman, who under evil sorcerer von Rothbart's spell appears as a swan during the day. They fall in love, Rothbart appears, Siegfried threatens to kill him, however if Rothbart dies before the spell is broken, it can never be undone.

Act 3 takes place in the castle. Von Rothbart and his daughter Odile, in disguise as Odette fool Siegfried into taking her as his wife. Siegfried sees the real Odette and realises his mistake, but its too late.

In the final act Siegfried returns to the lake to find Odette. He apologises, but von Rothbart appears and tries to pull the lovers apart. They realise the spell cannot be broken, and that the only way they can be together is in death. They jump into the lake and drown, breaking Rothbarts spell, who loses his powers and also dies.

Shakespeare

Couple more illustrations for Hullfire magazine. Was asked to create 2 images for the plays Othello and The Winters Tale.
Focusing on the symbolism and use of language in the plays I made these cryptic-ish conceptual images.



Othello - The play takes place in Venice, so ive included St. Marks Campanile, piercing a broken heart. The heart is made up of 2 faces, that of Othello and his lover Desdemona, and hints to both of their tragic ends. The heart can also be seen as a strawberry, which reminds us of the motif on Desdemona's handkerchief given to her by Othello.



The Winters Tale - Centres on the story of a pair Kings, once childhood friends, now jealous and scheming - one king orders the other to be poisoned, prompting him to say the lines "I have drunk and seen the spider". The image focuses on this quote, showing a black widow spider, with the two kings faces looking at each other, creating both the recognisable red shape on the spiders back and the shape of the poisoned cup. The blue in the left eye represents the winter beginnings of the play, while the green eye represents both the jealousy, and the plays shift to summer.

Information Illustration

This was an information illustration project. I chose to make a museum guide, informing visitors about the planets of our solar system. It was to be informative, stylish enough to want to keep, and able to appeal to both adults and children alike.

Each page of the concertina booklet focuses on a different planet, and when all the pages are unfolded and reversed, there is a poster of all the planets orbiting the sun.


Here are the pages



And here is the poster on the reverse



These were made by taking photos of nature, rocks, textures etc and photos of tissue paper on a lightbox, and combining them digitally, making them transparent and highlighted and whatnot.

"The Four Brothers" Narrative Project

I had to illustrate a short Indian fable type story called Four Brothers. After their father dies, the four brothers each travel to a different town, and end up having to help the town in some way. They all learn wonderful moral truths from their tasks, return home, and live together happily.

The first image shows the four brothers working on their farm.
The second image shows two of the brothers wives gossiping about them.
The final image is of the Kings elephant in a boat, waiting to be weighed.





I made these using the old cut out of black card, stick coloured paper behind, and photograph on lightbox technique.