Exhibition

Some friends and I are having an exhibition which is on until 29th July. The opening night was last Friday and it was an amazing turnout! You can see the website and pictures here:

http://freshbatchexhibition.tumblr.com/

I'll try and post some more pictures soon!

CHOOSE LIFE

Todays tale is of life. I took myself to a life (drawing) session with my pal Briony last night. The model had a small wreath of flowers nestled between her curls, and was not unlike Titania from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.   

So I set up a tumblr...

I have been extremely negligent due to the fact I have set up a tumblr, it's much of the same but a tad neater. You can see it at http://jessicaamyillustration.tumblr.com/
I attempted a small animation in celebration of this! Hope you like it!

1st Term Linoprint

This was a linoprint I did last term for a project based on 'What a Life!' a satirical novel by Edward Verrall Lucas and George Morrow published in 1911, using cutouts from Whiteley's General Catalogue, a London department store. We were all given an extract to interpret, this was mine:

'It was about this time that I made the acquaintance of William Browne, of London, whose peculiarity it was to be always out. It is conjectured that during a period of many years he was never at home.

Sir William Broadfoot, the well-known R.A., was a frequent visitor. He would often go out sketching, but was so absent-minded that he forgot his paints.

Then there was Lord Highlow, who constructed a dirigible of his own invention, in which he made frequent ascents from Brooklands, accompanied by his two beautiful daughters.

We used magazines for the 1960's/70's as inspiration. I took the idea that when Mr Browne was out and Sir William Broadfoot was visiting, Broadfoot was actually having an affair with Mr Browne's wife. Whilst Mr Browne is at work, he is actually spying on his wife through a machine. The machine was taken from an article about science in a Sunday Times magazine from the 1970's. 

ZEDEX

I did some album artwork for maximalist house duo ZEDEX's new EP, 'Zulu X-Ray'. You can find it on these websites along with a few reviews and a sample of their Fenech-Soler 'Demons' remix. I'd definitely recommend it.

http://www.metamimetic.com/zedex-x-fenech-soler/

http://gottadancedirty.com/2011/02/26/zedex-x-fenech-soler/

http://electronicrumors.com/2011/02/28/zx-now-zedex-remixes-fenech-soler-free-ep/

No rubbers allowed.

This was a life drawing from my most recent life class. It is technically my best so far and I don't dislike it, which is unusual for life drawing because it is very difficult and our tutor doesn't let us use a rubber.. at all. But it really does help in the end. It was only taken on my phone but I might take some better photos of them later in the year.

We wish we'd bought a chocolate mummy

A location drawing from the British Museum of a bit of a chipped, no-face statue. Not a very successful day of drawing purely because I had never been to the British Museum before and there was so much to see! Got my picture taken a few times by tourists too, it would seem students with paper and pens are more fascinating than the antiquities! (Also, they sold chocolate mummies in the gift shop, I regret my decision not to buy one every day.)

Collage shmollage

Some images from a collage project we did with illustrator Nick White. It was a really fun few days, I experimented a bit and some were more successful that others but they're all really different. My favourite one is the High Society record sleeve, but you be the judge!

Playing Doctor

A narrative illustration sequence for the project Liar Liar based on the life of Jean Claude Romand. If you want to hear a tale of murder and deceit I suggest you read up on him, very interesting but very sad.

Dressed

Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design is an amazing book full of illustrations by some of the most successful designers throughout Hollywood history! Covering the golden age of cinema and continuing to the present day, it is a cohesive encyclopaedia to Hollywood actors/actresses and their costumes, whilst also giving insight into the characters they played. Even if you don't like costume design it is amazing purely for the photographs, the designs, the various drawing techniques used and even for reference purposes, as it contains nearly every time period and is therefore a good reflection of fashion throughout history! I rented mine from the university library for now but I'm pretty sure I'll get round to buying it soon. It really is a beautiful book.

Whitechapel

Went to the John Stezaker exhibition at the Whitechapel gallery on Saturday. Really informative and fantastic exhibition, especially if you want to see something so simple yet effective, whilst being completely jealous thinking about how much fun Mr Stezaker must have splicing and dissecting to create such a beautiful collage technique with minimal imagery used. I suggest going if you like nostalgia and people with gaping gorges and canyons for faces! I certainly did!

Horrible Hairstories

We had a group zine project based on hair so our group decided to do myths and stories about hair that may or may not be true. These two double page illustrations were my contribution to our square zine.

All the zines lined up in a neat little row!

Bollywood or Bust

My challenge for the storyboard project was to amalgamate Howard Hawks' 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' with Mira Nair's 80's Indian film 'Salaam Bombay'. both films have huge merit in their own right and are very different but exciting. I wanted to allow the children who are unable to fulfill their dreams within 'Salaam Bombay' to enter into the fantastical world of Bollywood musicals and have a little adventure of their own. Unfortunately I was quite ill whilst trying to complete this so I couldn't do it exactly how I wanted, but here are a few snippets to give an idea of what I was going for.

 

Happy Late Valentines!

Here is a Valentines day card I made just using paper-cut techniques and an old magazine picture.

Physics is cool

Here is a black and white drawing originally intended for T-shirt reproduction but ended up being just a bit of fun for myself and ZX (ZEDEX), a great maximalist house duo on the metamimetic label. I suggest you download their EP in the releases section, it'll get you toe-tapping guaranteed. You won't get your money back because it's free! 

http://www.metamimetic.com/ 

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

A fabulous film objectifying both men and women in a hilariously glamorous way. Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe make an ingenious pair, the former a bawdy brunette, and the latter a gold-digging blonde. Musicals are almost always my favourite type of entertainment in any shape or form, and no matter how much I watched this film for the storyboard project, it never got boring or irritating.

We were asked to take a film and combine it with another that was chosen by our partner. These were a few of the sketchbook pages I created in preparation.

Paper-cut 

 "Just two little girls, from Little Rock!"

Spot the inspiration

I found the costumes really inspiring and may illustrate these further at a later date!

Let's get going

I have decided to really start believing in blogs and have been encouraged to cure my technophobia and get cracking!

Here are a few illustrations from a project we had based on 'The Outsider' by Albert Camus. I attempted to capture viewpoint throughout my illustrations and hope this came across. I wasn't completely happy with all aspects of the series but I learnt that painting can be quite rewarding!

Rough cover design intended for lino print really: Libra constellation, hanging in the balance.

Looking out to Algiers, the people, the habits, the heat.

Marie

The Courtroom

Introductions

I'm going to start a new term with a new blog. I thought it was about time to set one of these up as everybody's doing it now, so here's mine; a homage to Illustration amongst other things. I'll start with some location drawings from last term from the Hunterian Museum and Soho. Sorry about the lack of colour, I'm working on that. 

'Apparatus for the resuscitation of persons apparently drowned, late 18th century', with bottles of tinctures and medicines. 

Artictis Binturong 

Baby Skeleton, no. 32  

The Three Greyhounds pub, near Soho