It's Tea O' Clock

For me it's always 'tea o' clock'. How fitting that I should be commissioned to create a mad tea party, straight out of Alice in Wonderland! You may have seen my previous posts on this project here and here (if you want to see initial designs and sketches then click over and have a look).

As promised - see the 'making of' photos (more will make their way into my book, but here's a sprinkling for you), and photos of the finished scene are below as well.

See the piece at exhibition at CTN eXpo, Center Stage Gallery, Burbank, California from 6th Nov - 10th Jan.

See more photos of the piece at my website here.

Prints will be available for purchase next week here.

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THE DESIGN

I tried to create this scene based on how I pictured the characters in the book by Lewis Carroll when read to me as a child. I did the Mad-hatter in yellow striped britches because yellow is my favourite colour, and I chose a red coat because it's symbolically English. The March Hare wears a boater with blue ribbon, inspired by the school uniform at Harrow and his blazer is from Haileybury - the private school my dad attended. The high tea foods are typically English - bakewell tarts, jam tarts, fairy cakes, tiny sandwiches and cake. The only un-English thing is the Charlotte Russe cake which is a French dessert, but not unusual in an English teatime setting.

It's made in 1:12 (one inch) scale miniature using clay, wood, wire and other mixed media. It will be available for sale, but I'm already speaking to one or two people interested in buying it, so if you're really keen please send me an email here.

Enjoy the photos!

The finished scene

alice in wonderland, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland concept art, Tim Burton stop-motion, stop-motion Alice in Wonderland

How you turn my World

Just recently I attended the Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball in Los Angeles, for the fifth time.

This year it was held at the stunning Biltmore Hotel - a place I've stayed at and love. It's in Downtown LA and was built in 1922 and even if you haven't been there, you'll likely recognise it from the number of films which have scenes shot there (list here).

But the ball itself... it was out-of-this-world as always, with everyone in attendance dressed in incredible outfits, attending as fairy kings, sprites, goblins and Georgian fops in powdered wigs. I have too much work on right now to have made a costume so I wore my old graduation ballgown from RHUL (last worn when I was 21) and was possibly the most simply dressed in attendance. It didn't matter once I added a mask and shawl.

The most exciting part of the event this year was the entertainment. Always incredible, this year it couldn't have appealed more to me. On stage, the dancers (dressed as all manner of magical characters) danced to Michael Jackson's Thriller perfectly, as a gigantic puppeteered dragon made its way centre stage and joined the dance. It was wild!

Previous post about this wonderful ball here.

In other news, I have mentioned in previous posts here and here that I am working on an Alice in Wonderland project. It will be finished this Friday, right before I flit off for a weekend in Vegas. I'll write a proper blog post sharing the making of it soon, and of course I'll show you the final result. This piece will also be published and exhibited at the CTN eXpo, Center Stage Gallery, Burbank, California. Find out more about upcoming events and exhibitions at my website homepage here.

So many books, so little time

Last week I found myself in downtown LA and wandered into a magical place called 'The Last Bookstore'. It was a bizarre book shop with books stacked to the ceiling and inside vaults you climb into, tunnels of books you walk through and an actual labyrinth of books that you weave your way through to get to the exit on the other side. It was a curious place. It even had pennies tile the floor (see photo below).

If you're in LA you have to give it a look (website), and not just because they also host an art gallery for local artists and upon chatting to one of the organisers I was asked to sell prints of my illustrations there (!)

This place was fun inspiration for the project I am in the middle of - my 'Alice in Wonderland' commission. On that note, scroll past the iPhone photos I took of 'The Last Bookstore' and see my work-in-progress snaps of this project. If you follow me on Instagram then you probably already saw my furniture. This is the rest I've created thus far. There's an un-birthday cake, a Charlotte cake with pocketwatch, another cake, English tea time sandwiches and fairy cakes etc, and books and teapots to fill the table.

Also, see some of the planning for this Alice in Wonderland miniature piece in my previous post here.

PS Title quote by Frank Zappa. "So many books, so little time".

Downtown LA baby! (I love it there).

My work-in-progress Alice in Wonderland project...

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...

A Gaggle of Witches

I finished that painting of a gaggle of bad witches from 'Good Witches Bad Witches' but haven't been able to post it here due to a defunct (and now replaced) computer which I look forward to beating with a baseball bat this afternoon. My new computer is making me very happy.

So, you can see the in-progress painting in my last post, and now here it is finished. It's watercolour on paper and it depicts European witches.  

For those that don't know about the project 'Good Witches Bad Witches' - this is being developed as a children's book about the witches of the world, a series of witch sculptures which will be exhibited in LA and a short film. You can find out more about it by exploring this blog or head straight to the website page here.

Back soon!

Shout Outs!

First, a bit about what I've been up to... I ran out of brown clay and so had to put my tree sculpt on the back-burner whilst I wait for my Amazon delivery, so in the meantime I've planned and started painting an illustration for the book 'Good Witches Bad Witches'. (See my progress below)

I've always been inspired by Norman Rockwell's paintings which show a gathering of people (for instance his 'Golden Rule' which you can see here), and for ages I've had in mind an illustration of my 'bad witches' in a similar crowd setting. And if you're interested n learning more about Norman Rockwell you should check out his page on Artsy (here). Artsy is a great resource for art collectors by the way, so you should out the site anyway!

The first sketch was just to see how many faces (from my sketchbook here) I could get onto one page. Then I roughly scribbled some crayon colour over it to make sure I didn't have all the redheads on one side and blondes / greys on the other. Then I re-drew it, this time paying more attention to form (inspiration from Rockwell). Then I drew it a final time in pencil, and larger.

I hope to have this painting finished by the weekend and I'll post it here when it is.

And now some 'shout outs' as Americans would put it. To everyone else - 'giving credit to / raising awareness of' some of the artists I met at Comic Con last weekend.

Melissa Pagluica. This artwork has a slight Mucha feel to it, but is super original and just beautiful. She writes her own work too - very talented. Check out here work here.

Vin Teng. This artist does amazing sculptures. I actually watched him work at his booth at Comic Con - very impressive. Lovely bloke too. Find out more here.

Jack and the Pirate Attack / Jack and the Zombie Attack. These books were written and illustrated by this fantastic husband and wife team I met at Comic Con. Find out more here.

Mike Bocianowski. This guy's work was so enchanting! Adorable and a lot of humour. See more here.

Josh Shalek. This guy is brilliant! He writes and illustrates his own comics, has done an album cover, and he was one of the most buzzing, ambitious people at Comic Con - and I just love that kind of energy. See more here.

Comic Relief

Just got back from San Diego where I experienced my first Comic Con adventure. Wow... 130,000 people in one space... many in costume, many huge fans of fantasy, sci-fi and comics. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be!

For anyone who does not know, Comic Con is a nonprofit educational corporation dedicated to creating awareness and appreciation for comics and related popular art forms. (Yes, I just got that from their website). 

Anyway, I had a blast. It was 4 days of fascinating talks and professional panels and admiring artists' work in the main hall.
I found the artists talented, friendly and eager to talk about their work (many of them had used Kickstarter to fund a beautiful book or game).
However, I was prompted to draw this silly cartoon for comic relief when I got back to the hotel on day one. I just coloured it in now using Photoshop. It was inspired by a row of male artists who had their 'verging-on-porn-superhero' artwork stacked all around them, and at the same time ignored all women who came to their booths. Kinda a funny thing I thought, as one artist who drew only redheads totally blanked me when I came to chat to him. After a couple of failed attempts to speak to him I finally slunk off, with a real déjà vu high school flashback thing happening!! ;)

In other news.... my Tall Tales Productions website is back!

The site's been down for a few months as I redesigned it and switched to a different server, but it's back now. However, during the time it was down I had it redirect here to my blog. Now the site is back up it may still redirect you, but the quick solution is to follow the link - www.tall-tales.com and then quickly hit the refresh button (as shown below) if it starts trying to redirect you to my blog. You'll only need to do this once and then it'll always work.

Thanks for taking a look.

Here are a few photos from Comic Con, San Diego, 2015.

comic-con sexism, comic book sexism, comic book artists misogyny. sexism in comics, feminism in comic 

Nerd Alert!

Not content with dressing in big flouncy dresses and fairy wings for the Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball and donning wench outfits for the Renaissance Faire... I am now about to go a step lower further and attend Comic-Con.

I'm only kidding, I think it will be great fun and a great crowd. Next year I'll have my own table there so I'm keen to get a good look at the place and feel for what it's about. I have a feeling I might stick out like an impostor in a sea of Supermen and Galadriels. Should be fun though and I'll definitely show photos on this blog when I get back from San Diego.

In other news.... you haven't heard from me for two weeks as I've been working on projects for publishing, and thus don't have that much to show you. However, last night after my evening plans fell through I sat at my desk and sketched witch after witch after witch.... looks like I've got the next 10 designs kinda covered and so I'll be back to proffering a witch a week in no time.

I've also begun work on a miniature tree.... i's going to look a lot like that old illustration of mine... stay tuned!