Madness

I have been commissioned to create something on the Alice in Wonderland theme, and coming from Oxfordshire it's a real thrill. I had an idyllic 'Alice like' childhood. We punted on the Thames in the beautiful hot summers and had picnics on the riverbank. I had adventures in the fields behind my house, in my tiny village where all the houses were thatched and 500 odd years old. I hid treasures down rabbit holes and badger setts and drew maps to find them again. And of course I drank tea from Victorian china with the grown-ups just as soon as they let me.

So, yesterday I started sketching some ideas. It's going to be centered on the Madhatter's tea party. I sketched some ideas to decide how I want him to look. I am trying very hard to make him my own design, and not a copy of Tenniel or Disney, however, I also want him to be recognisable as the Madhatter. I felt happy with one of the sketches, so I scanned it and today I quickly added some colour. Disney has him in green and so I went with a very English red and striped yellow britches, since it's my favourite colour. 

Tomorrow I will start sculpting him in miniature (1:12 scale, polymer clay).

Also, to plan my scene I did some sketches and then roughly cut out cardboard shapes (in the general scale) to gauge how it will all work out. I've decided to share these working developments, but please remember they're very quick and dirty!

Speaking of madness, I added colour to my Madhatter image using Photoshop, but sans tablet I made do with a mouse. Took twice as long as it should have done and opting to do this was probably quite mad...