Panto initial design ideas/sketches

Here are some initial ideas for each scene for Panto.

Mufti Games at the Barbican this Saturday!

I've recently been working with Mufti games, on a new collectors game commissioned by the Barbican as part of their Magnificent Collectors family day.

We have been creating a new game that responds to their current exhibition 

'Magnificent Obsessions'

Classification station badges: 

The badge design is meant to look like crossed magnifying glasses, similar to the crossed keys design in The Grand Budapest Hotel, and also suggests a face with glasses and a moustache.

Info on this Saturdays event:

I'll be there all day Saturday so come and say hi if you pop in!

Finished design for the European Blues Invasion Flyers, posters and t-shirt design

Here is the front and back design for the EBI Flyers, and  black and white T-shirt screen print design:

Panto cloth designs

To create the designs I used a combination of hand drawing on a light box, and photoshop to create flat bold shapes. The scale images have black outlines but the painted cloths won't.

Panto set and props sketches

Here are some sketches for a few bits from the Panto design for this year's 'Puss in Boots'

The Great Fete

I am currently working on the design for an Event in Exeter in August called:

'The Great Fete'

Which is based around a world war one recruitment fair.

Here is the first visual graphics for signage, posters and an identity card.

Cinderella for The Georgian Theatre Royal

Cinderella

More info about the show here: http://www.georgiantheatreroyal.co.uk/WhatsOn/Cinderella.aspx

Here are some initial sketches for the Panto style/design for Cinderella. I am really interested in working with the beautiful shapes and designs from original theatre and Harlequinade. Using the traditional colour palette throughout the set.

Some research inamges

                                       

Title cloth

Front cloth with projection screen hidden behind title cloth.

Carriage idea

The carriage will be made up of lace and copper coloured detail, in a traditional circular/pumpkin design. We have two real shetland ponies that will pull the cart onstage.

Cloth development

Not Much Matches Mansfield Illustrated poster

I have designed and illustrated the poster for Not Much Matches Mansfield, a site specific Theatre event happening across the town center. 

Prince of Denmark working drawings

 Working drawings

Under Milk Wood..

My Illustrated poster is up at Mansfield Palace!

Looking for the Rainbow..

I have designed this image for stickers that will be handed out to the children at the end of the show!

Under Milk Wood promotional posters and flyers...

Here are the finished posters and flyers for Under Milk Wood, at Mansfield Palace.

Dream Play

I am designing the set and costume for a play called Dream play, originally by John Steinbeck but adapted by Carol Churchill, it will be on at Lakeside in July.

The play is quite surreal and disjointed, it has many locations and a lot of theatrical challenges, for example flying children, two lovers sailing on a boat, a tower that grows throughout the play and then burns down at the end!

Here are two possible solutions for the flying children and boat scene.I think the play would work well being told in a storyteller style, with characters obviously creating small scale locations and manipulating props. Some of the locations include a cave, a seaside cholera quarantine station, stage door, solicitors room, class room, ballroom etc etc
The play is set in a dream and I would like the set to reflect the fragmented and blurred quality of dreams. Elements of each scene/location will be incorporated into many suspended square windows, stretching back into the distance. some will be practical, for example in the class room, one of these windows with have a chalk board within the frame that can be written on.

I really like the style of writing on the play, it has many great lines, here a a few of my favorites!

"Time flies while we speak. so time is something that flies while I'm speaking"

"I once asked a child whose Father was at sea why the sea was salty, and he said because sailors cry. Why do they cry? Because they are so far away. And they put there handkerchiefs on the masts to dry. So then I asked him why do people cry when they're sad? And he said because they have to wash their eyes so they can see better."

"What's poetry? It's not real but maybe it's more than real. It's dreaming while you're awake."

Looking for the Rainbow..

I am designing the set and costume for a show called Looking for the Rainbow, with the 'Big Window Theatre Company'.

Here are some initial sketches I have drawn, this image shows Mum revealing the Rainbow to Kirsty at the end of the play! It is rolled up in her laundry bag and she pegs it on the washing line, as she lets go it unrolls to the floor and a rainbow appears!

Here are some characters we meet along the way, the purple rabbit and blue fish drying on the rack! and the duck, he is a character in the story, his yellow t-shirt is collected to represent yellow in the rainbow, along with six other coloured t-shirts, one for each colour of the rainbow.
Here is the scale model I made for the research and development week, this helped the actors to understand the space they are working in and helped the creative and production team to work through ideas and how the space can be used. The design is still evolving and I will re make the model soon more accurately and with the changes and ideas that we developed during the R and D week.
The images show three of the set changes, the river, the cave and the rainbow finale!

More Alfie..

More images of Alfie..water colour and computer coloured

Water colour and ink Alfie

Here is an image of Alfie, drawn using ink and coloured with water colour

Alfie the Aye Aye...initial idea

After recently watching 'Last chance to see" I discovered the.. 'Aye aye".
One of the most interesting animals I have ever seen. They are particularly interesting to me as they are considered (unfairly) one of natures ugliest creatures.

They have a really long spindly finger that they use to tap on tree branches whilst listening with their enormous ears for grubs and beetles. Once detected they use their long finger to claw into the holes and pull out their tasty prize.

Ancient Malagasy legend said that the Aye-aye was a symbol of death.



I starting thinking about an Aye aye character and thought it would be a really great story for a childrens book. Today i started sketching my Aye aye..now named Alfie, and these are the first images i came up with.

Perfitt's Sandwich Shop

Xmas cards, Me, Mum, Martin and Fluke..

Ideas for some new xmas cards

These are some initial ideas for a set/range of lighthouse themed Xmas cards