This was the beginning of my project into personal identity, it was based on drinking tea with close friends, chatting and reminiscing about Sixth Form years.
This is a page from my portfolio based on childhood memories, in particular dolls and how to us as children they become so significant and as though they were real people, i made dolls of Andy and myself and we took them on a day out to Birmingham and instead of taking pictures of us or each other we photographed the dolls in all the places we had been.
This is a watercolour and ink drawing of two of my friends James and Bron, both of them are mountainboarders and displaying some pretty 'sweet injuries' this and the image below are both set in Papaya, a small tea shop in Hereford city center where we would congregate after college.
This is Jon (before a pretty drastic haircut) the owner of Papaya, over the years Jon has watched us grow up, he's seen us pass our exams, forge friendships, fall in love and end up broken hearted and seen alot of us move away from home for the first time.
During my Foundation Diploma there was a book arts module, where we learned to use the letter press and make our own books, this is a concertina folded book so actually opens in four different ways and from each view looks different.
We were encouraged to base our books on our current projects if we could efficiently interlink them, at the time i was continuing my project on memories from my own childhood. One of my strongest memories was writing letters to the fairies with my friend Alice and how at the time we believed with all our hearts.
Deep down i think i still do.
From my project on the fairies i began to write children's books which explained oddities in our world, such as when I put my socks in the wash in pairs why do they always come out missing their partner. These to me were just silly stories which I then completely lost myself in and to many of my friends appeared to be completely losing the plot.
It was these funny looking creatures which inspired me to become an illustrator.
This is Tinker, he is the 'Trinket Fairy' who lives in junk shops and fix all the broken jewelry for people to buy.
Below is Tinker's book, with his story inside.
The book below was called How to Catch a Fairy, it was about studying them but always respecting them as individuals, with feelings and very large hearts.
Above is a very small fairy in a 'Fairy studying jar' however the fairy has to agree to this.
Another view of the fairy in the 'Fairy Studying Jar'.
This is Rei, he is the cloud fairy, he takes the water from the puddles and mixes it with wool and fluff and blows large bubbles from his cloud pipe which float into the air and grow bigger and bigger and create the clouds.
This is a section from 'How to Catch a Fairy' on keeping fairies as pets.
This is Skarpety, he is my Mum's favourite. He's the odd sock fairy who takes all the odd socks and unravels them then knits them into beautiful long wooley coats for the fairies in Winter.
Below is Skarpety's book.
This is Chai, the tea fairy, he takes old teabags and dries them then paints them all sorts of beautiful colours and sews them into rugs and blankets to sell to the other fairies.
Below is Chai's book.
The following four images were the fairies for all the seasons, these ones are very mischievous and always quarreling and bickering because each one thinks that when they are in charge the world looks at its best.
Just to be clear: NO FAIRIES WERE HARMED DURING THIS PROJECT
These are photographs from my visual learning journals, these were where i kept inspirations and things which appealed to me, these were a great help during my course.
After writing the stories about the fairies i began to write others, one of which was about snails.
Ever since i was little i have always been fascinated by these strange little creatures which carry their houses on their backs.
One of my Mum's favourite anecdotes from my childhood is that when i was very small i asked her why nobody loved the snails, she then explained to me that people think they are slimy and ugly. Apparently i then looked up at her and said, "I'll love them then!"
The image above is from when i drifted off daydreaming somewhere about whether a snail is a creature or a mode of transport, and whether the whole thing was effectively just a very small camper van. I imagined the 'eyes on stalks' as periscopes and the conical nature of the shell as a curling slide or a spiral staircase.
I then decided, much to my parent's irritation, that i was going to keep a sort of snail small holding for a few days to watch them. It was a large jar with lots of air holes, plenty of plants and about eight snails.
These are observational drawings of all the 'doings' of lots of very small snails, adding captions to these was alot of fun, imagining what they might be saying and feeling.
These are two images of Giant African Land Snails.
The image below I drew in my naivety thinking that the snails were having a cuddle and thought it was quite sweet, and called in 'when snails fall in love'. However i later discovered, much to my embarrassment, what they were really doing and well.... yes.... you get the picture.
Having really enjoyed the book arts section of my course i then made books based on snails, filled with unknown facts which i found amusing.
Below is a book i made based on the snails i kept as pets for a few days, it was called 'The Goings on in The Snaily House' it contained the observational drawings i had done as well as captions, how to make a snail house and some very short stories.
