PES

Silhouettes and Shadows

I find myself drawn to silhouette imagery. I've been watching lots of Lotte Reiniger's cut-paper stop motion animations recently. The images above are from her 1922 animation of the classic fairy tale "Cinderella". I've become a big fan of hers since I saw a screening of 'The adventures of Prince Achmed" in the Barbican a couple of years ago. It's astonishing to think this was made over 80 years ago. It still looks so fresh and inventive. The visual economy imposed by this form of animation accentuates the charm and elegance of her figures.

The shadow's and silhouettes in Reiniger's work reminded me of the Shadow Catchers Exhibition I saw last month at the V&A. Floris Neusüss' life sized photograms were my personal highlight from the show. His figures are ethereal beings which inhabit a dream world somewhere between waking and sleeping. There are so many wonderful textures in these images with some areas of the figure appearing pin sharp whilst other parts are corrupted and abraded.

Howl (a blast from the past)

I went to see the film Howl in the cinema a couple of nights ago. The poem is so powerful I was interested to see how it would be portrayed visually. The movie was a combination of film and animation. Personally I wasn't super keen on the animation. I guess when you read a poem or a piece of prose you build a picture in your own mind of how it looks. Often when written work is translated into another form it doesn't look how you'd imagined.

A couple of year ago I'd did this series of illustrations based on Howl as a personal project. The images refer mainly to the first few lines of the poem:

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by

madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn

looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly

connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat

up smoking in the supernatural darkness of

cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities

contemplating jazz..."

Inspiring stuff - Joanna Neborsky & Demetrios Psillos

I was recently gifted a beautifully designed book entitled 'Three Line Novels' written by Felix Feneon and fantastically illustrated by Joanna Neborsky. I love her work, it's so lively and free with a really nice mix of collage and drawing.

Demetrios Psillos is another illustrator I recently came across who's work I admire, in particular his portraits.

Physical Apps

I thought this was a really charming piece of animation by a group of second year BA design students at Goldsmiths - Henry Flitton, Harriet McDougall, Chris Thomas and Ben Redford. They've physically illustrated the virtual applications of Twitter, Facebook and Spotify.

Physical Apps. from Harriet McDougall on Vimeo.

Umbrella

I've entered this image in Lloyds Art of Nurture Competition. The theme of the illustration is 'We Act Wisely'. I’ve represented the simple act of bringing an umbrella in case of rain to illustrate this concept. I wished to show that a wise decision does not have to be a grand gesture but can also be a very simple everyday action. The everyday choices we make can have a positive effect on not just ourselves but also on those around us.

The Outsider

This is my submission for the House of Illustration/Folio Society competition. The brief was to illustrate a cover and 3 scenes from 'The Outsider' by Albert Camus.

Design for front  cover

Part 1 - Chapter 5

"I was crouched on my bed and Salamano had sat down on a chair by the table. He was facing me with both is his hands on his knees. He still had his old felt hat on. He was mumbling half-finished sentences into his yellowing moustache."

Part 2 - Chapter 1

"He was leaning right across the table, waving his crucifix almost directly over me. To tell the truth, I hadn't followed his argument at all well, firstly because I was hot and his office was full of huge flies which kept landing on my face, and also because he frightened me a bit."

Part 2 - Chapter 3

"They were all looking at me: I realized that they were the jury. But I couldn't make any distinctions between them. I just had one impression: I was in a tram and all these anonymous passengers on the opposite seat were scrutinizing the new arrival to find his peculiarities."