Photos of Bletchley Park

I did a research trip to Bletchley Park on 11 July.  Here are some of the pictures I took:

Enigma machine

Enigma

keys

Lorenz

the Bombe

the back of the Bombe

Alan Turing statue

Alan again

Alan Turing's teddy bear, Porgy

panel text

Porgy

radio tower / ducks

Bletchley Park mansion

guardians

funding required

dilapidated bits

pipe pipes (to let out all the pipe and coke stove smoke so the Wrens could breathe!)

cracking

at the National Museum of Computing

equipment

switchboard

the Colossus

bulbs

wires

valves

tapes

lines and lines and lines

Frames

This is good: a friend has gone away for a month and asked me to house-sit. So I get a free quiet workspace right up to showtime!

Also, her mum gave me a couple of ornate old frames (about 23×29in each), which have sparked an idea for how to organise things.

I thought I could do three big pictures, one for each topic — to draw the eye, be a centrepiece for each section — and surround them with half a dozen small pictures in plain modern frames. 

Now I just need to find a third frame!  Been round some local charity shops today, but haven't seen anything that would complement these.  It would be really nice to find something properly 1940s-looking, art deco, but that would probably be expensive.

I also looked through the bric-a-brac to see if I could find any nice props for an installation area, but nothing yet.  Early days...

Cows, Codes and Kids: An Illustration Exhibition

Exciting news! I'm delighted to announce that I will have a solo exhibition in the MK Gallery Project Space, 23-29 August. 

Introducing Me and My Work

~  Hello!  My name is Sian.  I'm an illustration student from Milton Keynes, which is a town 50 miles from London, UK.  I am fascinated by history.

~  I've been offered a one-week solo exhibition at Milton Keynes Gallery, as part of their scheme Project Space 2012.  Six art students from universities in the region are exhibiting over the summer, although I believe I'm the only one direct from MK College.  I'll be contributing a series of drawings, paintings and prints, illustrating scenes I've read about in local history books, and quotes by codebreakers, Land Girls and evacuees.

The Stories I'm Telling

~  I'm hoping that my research and illustrations can form the basis of one of my MA projects, and perhaps become my first published children's book!

~  Milton Keynes was founded as a new town in 1967, so it's often thought of as a very modern place.  The general perception of it is as a collection of glass office buildings, a shopping centre and a baffling road system with many roundabouts.  But it also has ancient ruins, mentions in the Doomsday Book... and we played this extraordinary role in WW2.

~  During WW2, the area of Bletchley was the centre of the Allies' top secret intelligence campaign.  Young people there broke Nazi codes and ciphers, shortening the War by at least two years, saving countless lives.  They weren't allowed to talk about their work until 1977.  In the fields which were later to become MK shops and residential areas, the Women's Land Army took over the agricultural labour which had to be done while male farm workers were off fighting.  And as MK is so inland, it didn't attract many bombs -- so foster families took in children evacuated from the Blitz.

~  At Bletchley Park, it wasn't all tweedy pipe-smoking professors: 3/4 of the staff were women, the average age was 19, they had a drama society and skated on the lake in winter.  People needed to be young, vigorous and passionate to be able to withstand the long hours and the immense pressure of knowing their secret work could make or break Britain's war effort.  The Land Girls weren't all the rosy-cheeked maids of propaganda posters, looking all capable with farm machinery: the girls often had no training and had to do unphotogenic jobs like rat-catching and mucking out pigs.  But they got on with it because they knew feeding the nation was vital -- and they didn't get any official thanks for their efforts until 2007, when all living Land Girls received a commemorative badge.  They were known as 'the Cinderella Service'.  I really want to illustrate the stories of all these unsung heroes, bringing their work to the attention of a new generation.

~  This is a topical project.  2012 is the centenary of the star codebreaker and father of modern computing, Alan Turing.  2012 is also apparently the last year the former Land Girls will be marching past the Cenotaph.

How You Can Help!

~   If you have memories of the times I'm illustrating, or know someone who does, and would like to talk to me about your experiences, I would LOVE to hear from you.  Please leave a comment below or email sian@drawosaur.com

~  After being a full-time student for a year, I have limited finances and the Gallery's unable to offer me a grant for this project, just the space.  So I need to raise £400-£500 to make it all happen.  I have most of the materials already, but my big expense is going to be frames, and printing any of the digital artwork.  In a few days, I will be launching a fundraising page, where you an donate any amount you like with just a couple of clicks.  EDIT:  it's now here: http://www.indiegogo.com/wardrawings

~  Even if you can't contribute money, please let others know about my campaign -- maybe you know someone who can!  When I launch the page, please RT the link on Twitter, share on Facebook, or your own little corner of the Internets.

~  If you're quite local / London, please let me know if you have artefacts you could lend to my interactive exhibit.  Be aware that you'd be risking theft or sticky fingers (although the Gallery will be insured).  But if you have any objects or textiles that would suit a 1940s corner for art-loving children, get in touch.

~   And of course, by coming to view the exhibition when it's up!

Fire Gardens

The IFMK arts festival has been taking place in Milton Keynes during July. Fire Gardens was an installation and event in Campbell Park staged by La Compagnie Carabosse. It was really impressive!

(27 photos under the cut)

Final Major Project - Billy Films

YouTube link. This is the main piece I made for my final major project.

This spring, I went on a puppetry performance course at the Little Angel Theatre.  There were nine weeks of preparation and then a free performance for family/friends at the end.  Our main tutor was Oli Smart of Folded Feather, who specialises in found object puppetry, and we also had classes on shadow play with one-time artistic director of the Little Angel Steve Tiplady, and multimedia puppetry with Nic Rawling (aka Nic Beard) of Paper Cinema.  I was particularly inspired by the two tutorials with Nic, and decided to use the techniques he'd taught us to create my final performance. 

Which looked something like this:

YouTube link.  (Although to be honest, I did re-film some stuff that I couldn't get on the night.  I think film people call those 'pick-ups'.)

I used that puppetry course at the Little Angel as the starting point of my final major project at MK College, and ended up making five little films, which were to be presented on a loop at the summer exhibition.

Here are some of the themes I looked at in my FMP: 
*- Exploring the grey area between animation and illustration.  
*- Taking one of the intrinsic aspects of both forms -- that they're all finished and polished before they reach their audience -- and turning it on its head.  What if illustration could be a live, dynamic, interactive thing?
*- Most art / illustration / printmaking is concerned with mark-making.  The images I've been making, the stories I've been telling, were only supposed to exist in the moment. Does the fact that they're impermanent make them more precious to the audience?  If I have to film everything to make a record of it and have something to put in the exhibition, are the exhibition-goers (or internet viewers) getting something less special than those who were there on the night? Or is it just different?
*- I always try to make things perfect, but perhaps the more slick, glossy and perfected an illustration is, the less individuality and charm it has.  When something is handmade with care and love, it's best to show off and celebrate that.  What you see as your mistakes are your handwriting.  (My key inspirational figures on this note were Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin.)

I'm glad I got the chance to think about these things at the end of the Foundation course.  I'm doing an MA in Children's Book Illustration next, and I expect that'll be more focused on books and creating work that can be published, so the FdA could well be my best chance of exploring these more conceptual / performance-orientated ideas.

I was keen to credit Nic clearly, because the Paper Cinema puppetry style is his creation -- I knew many people visiting my exhibition would never have seen this sort of thing before, so I didn't want them to think I'd completely invented it.  (I haven't mentioned the company in the blurb of my YouTube videos, though, because otherwise my work would come up every time somebody searched for them.)  I also don't intend to make any more films using this technique, although this has sparked ideas for other multimedia illustration/animation work that would be more my own original thing. But do go and look at Paper Cinema's work on YouTube, or better still, see them perform if you can -- they are truly remarkable. 

I hope Neil Hannon would like my take on his song if he ever saw it.  I chose this one to illustrate because I find the story in the lyrics incredibly moving and uplifting, so I hope that comes across.  All along, the ironic chorus 'international business traveller' suggests this suave guy sailing with ease through luxury airport lounges; not the one described in the verses, sweating and begging and panicking, being led astray by rogue Belgians and bossed around by airline staff.  But while Billy's not debonair, he's got his priorities absolutely right.  That swell of strings on the big reveal about why he's been rushing to get home, always leaves me in bits.  I also think Billy's probably missed other special moments in his family's lives, and he's learned from that, so I think it's also a song about redemption.  It's all about knowing that family has to be top priority and trying to be a better dad and person, even if other things get in the way.  I thought that was a very powerful message.  Billy doesn't sprout feathers in the lyrics, but as a frustrated commuter I often wished I could just grow wings and fly home, so that was my little addition to the story.

I'll post my other films here in due course, although they're already online at my new YouTube channel.

Charmed Life Papercuts

Here are the finished papercuts inspired by the lyrics of Charmed Life.  The cliffs were much more complex and took three times as long to do -- I managed to get the wave done in a day.  They're mounted on tiny 4mm card-making dots to make them float above the grey paper, some of the dots needed to be cut into three with a scalpel, that was the most fiddly part, I'd say.
I was going to mount them on black, as my project's been so much about black and white work, but the contrast was so stark that I felt it drowned out (ho ho) some of the finer detail.  This grey paper gives a more subtle effect.  In keeping with the nautical theme, the backing paper is called 'dreadnought grey'.

 

I cut the flowers as thin slits like the slats of the boat, but underneath the glass frame they just disappeared.  I cut out some tiny petals and leaves from printer paper and glued them on (lots of tweezer work), which I think looks pretty and draws attention to them a bit more.

They certainly look restful in their white frames, even though they're tempestuous images.  I hope they go down well at the exhibition! 

Charmed Life Papercuts - Process Shots

Rapidly making two papercuts out of A3 sketch paper, so I can have new examples of papercutting in the exhibition. They're based on a verse from The Divine Comedy's 'Charmed Life', and they're also inspired by two C19th artworks by Hokusai and Monet.

Hokusai - Great Wave Off Kanagawa

Monet - Cliffs at Etretat

Well sometimes this life is like being afloat

On a raging sea in a little row boat

Just trying not to be washed overboard

But if you take your chances and you ride your luck

And you never, never, never, never, never give up

Well those waves will see you safely to a friendly shore.

oops

Ha!  So much for blogging every single lesson.  Oh well.  I'll add more to this much-neglected blog over the summer.

My first project was about the Women's Land Army.  I ended up making a series of badges/medals showing Land Girls doing the most rotten jobs (cleaning out the pigs, rat-catching) to celebrate their efforts and achievements.

My second project was themed around my cats, I did lots of observational drawing.  I also wanted to explore printmaking, as I felt like we'd only scratched the surface in the Taster classes.  I made drypoint etchings, various approaches to linocut, monotype and collagraph, and picked my favourite method to illustrate a poem about cats.

(It was lucky that I had this chance to draw my cat Poppy all the time, because she went missing in April and still hasn't turned up.  It's sad for me to look through this project now, but I'm glad I have so many drawings and photographs of her.)

I'll put pictures from these projects on the blog over the summer, when all the frantic prep for the final project is out of the way.

My final major project is due soon -- the exhibition will open at Middleton Hall in Milton Keynes shopping centre on 26th June.  I'm not terribly sure I'll be ready in time!  It explores puppetry, performance, shadow play and storytelling, and involves a series of little films and paper-cuttings.

Trip to Birmingham

I went to Birmingham to visit the German Christmas market, although first I looked round the city's art gallery.  I really enjoyed their large Pre-Raphaelite collection, and a small but rewarding collection of prints called A Life in Prints: The Tessa Sidey Bequest.  But I suppose like many people I was most charmed by the 1890 painting Dominicans in Feathers by Henry Stacey Marks:

Here are my photos from the day out.  (Edited using the Instagram iPhone app.)

Happy Christmas Birmingham

My new friend!  I bought this big felted Triceratops.  I love his wonky horns.