Deconstructing the castle. . .

I found this kit in hobby craft, the idea is to fix all the numbered pieces of wood together to construct the London Bridge and I decided that the tops of the towers looked very much like turrets off a castle, so I decided to deconstruct this London Bridge kit and make it into my own castle and because I wanted it to look more spooky I painted it black. This helped to make the silhouette stand out more against the colourful backgrounds and I was referencing this from Jan Pienkowski's work, as he has created a lot of silhouettes of castles in his work and I wanted to capture that magical quality that he has in his pieces in my own work.

Experimenting with metal. . .

This was me experimenting with metal and soldering together to create my 'tin soldier', i had never worked with these materials before and it was quite refreshing. Although I think he looks too much like a robot rather than a childrens toy soldier... but it was something to think about and I may even visit this again in the future.

My personal project images

I was really pleased with my feedback that I received from my tutor. Although I am aware that I need to make a few improvements to them. But overall i'm really pleased with the results and my way of working. I like the 3d mixed with the 2d aspects in them. And with some of the images for example the waterfall, I like how its a mystery as to how I constructed the image. I think I have answered my brief well but I think there could still be some improvements in this aspect, I need to put these images into some kind of context, whether its adding text from the story in the image or getting the images bound in a book but I am planning to look into this further.
I need to think more about the cropping of images and try to not overcrowd my images with too many of my models. I need to keep reminding myself that some images work well enough on their own for example the swan. Plus some of my images need to be 'airbrushed' or tidied up on Photoshop.
I did find a way of working that I thought was really effective and that was cutting out silhouettes for example, the fire or the waves and then making then stand up in layers as a set. It seems to add depth to the photographs and I like the shadows it casts I am especially pleased with the fire images and i am hoping to experiment more with this technique in the future.

Luise from Container Plus

Dear Gemma,

please find answers below.

I hope they are helpful.

Apologies again for late reply.

Best wishes,

Luise

On 19 May 2010, at 21:57, Gemma Beaven wrote:

Hello Luise!

I would love for you to answer my questions as they will definitely be still relevant. I would like to continue viewing your work and use you as inspiration for other projects as i study into my third year, so any advice or input would be much appreciated!

Many Thanks!

Gemma

---

I was also wondering (if you do decide to reply) if i could possibly get your permission to show this email and your reply on my blog?

It's fine if you want to show it on your blog.

These are the questions I would really like to ask you:

What sort of things inspire your work? whether it's designers, illustrators, environments or themes?

Our work is inspired by things outside of the arena of illustration. Illustration is a medium and not content. All 3 of us read a lot of fiction, we all love immersive storytelling, so we try and create an atmosphere in our projects that takes you out of the everyday. Usually we start by having conversations - bouncing things backwards and forwards between each other. We pick up each other's threads. I might have seen something at an art gallery that links to some film Nicola has watched which in turn relates to some childhood memory of Patricia's. Between the three of us we can weave a web of ideas.

How would you describe your working method or style?

We combine illustration, photography, set design and performance to create immersive narrative pieces or environments.

How do you work so well as a team?

We listen to each other.

We understand each other's strengths and weaknesses.

We bring each other cake.

But the most important thing is listening.

There is no place for big egos in a group.

What project/client did you enjoy the most and has made you want to push your work even further?

We really enjoyed working on the website for The Assembly Agency.

We were challenged as designers, as the client kept asking if there was a better way of doing it.

Because the deadline wasn't prohibitively tight we were forced to redo things a number of times - with a really strong result (we think).

We were also challenged technically. We worked with a programmer to build the site in flash, but we had to prepare all the assets and do some stopframe animation. To be able to do that we had to understand the whole process of web programming, which was initially hard.

Thank you for taking the time to read my email, as I've said i'm a MASSIVE fan of your work and i'd love to hear any input or advice you have as illustrators.

I look forward to your reply,

Best wishes

Gemma Beaven

Email to Container Plus

Dear Gemma,

I am sorry I didn't get back to you earlier.

Have I missed the dealine for the presentation?

If it is still relevant I could answer your questions tomorrow -

please let me know.

Once more - apologies!

Best wishes

Luise

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www.containerplus.co.uk

+44 (0)20 7193 7849

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" 様々なクリエイティブ手段によってダークユーモアとウィットに富んだ

幻想世界を表現するコンテイナープラスは

常に我々の想像力をかきたてながら

独自のストーリーを膨らませるアーティストチーム "

八代久里　Kuri Yashiro, Freelance Writer (Japan)

____________________________

6 Elder Street

Second Floor

London UK E1 6BT

____________________________

Luise Vormittag

luise(at)containerplus.co.uk

+44 (0)7940 013 323

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On 1 May 2010, at 22:09, Gemma Beaven wrote:

Dear Luise,

My name is Gemma and I'm a student at Stockport college, currently studying illustration as a degree and I was wondering if I could ask a few questions about your work and how you, Nicola and Patricia work so well as a collaboration group?
I'm a massive fan of your work and I have a presentation on who inspires/influences me and I thought it would be a good idea to see what inspires your work?

I was also wondering (if you do decide to reply) if i could possibly get your permission to show this email and your reply on my blog?

These are the questions I would really like to ask you:

What sort of things inspire your work? whether it's designers, illustrators, environments or themes?

How would you describe your working method or style?

How do you work so well as a team?

What project/client did you enjoy the most and has made you want to push your work even further?

Thank you for taking the time to read my email, as I've said i'm a MASSIVE fan of your work and i'd love to hear any input or advice you have as illustrators.

I look forward to your reply,

Best wishes

Gemma Beaven

Chinese lanterns

I have recently been looking at Chinese lanterns as inspiration for my new brief 'James And The Giant Peach". I was thinking of using this idea for making a 3-d peach so i could put a light inside it, so it looks like the peach is glowing . . .

Gaga Tree- A chinese collaborative

This is a pop up greetings card by a graphics/design collaborative called 'Gaga Tree'. The card includes an instruction booklet inside and shows you how you can turn the card into a decoration or ornament. This is also a great idea which i could use as inspiration for my artifact.

Rommy models

I have found these cute 3-D paper characters whilst searching for ideas on creating an artifact. The way the characters look as though they can be perched on a table, fireplace etc as an ornament is a really nice idea and perhaps i could consider this as a way of creating a toy.

My friend Liz took this photograph for me, it was in a shop window in the 'Triangle' in  manchester. I love the scale in which these delicate swans have been made out of different colour paper, from looking at the image it looks very much like have been its been done from magazines. This image inspired me to create the swans from 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier' in this origami method. 

Alan McGowan

On day two of ' The Shadow Play' symposium. Alan McGowan, a highly skilled draughtsman, illustrator and teacher, spoke eloquently about his practice and showed the series of images that he produced in response to ‘Faust’ by Goethe. He attempted through his work to really connect with the text and show this emotion on paper. His large-scale figurative drawings are produced with charcoal. He likes to make his work ambiguous and open to interpretation. He explored the history of the meaning of shadows and the connection with negativity, evil and un-trust. This was illustrated by ‘The Simile of the Cave’ by Plato, the shadows symbolize what is false and that images can be mis-leading. He also showed the work of J.B Suvee ‘The Origin of the Painting’ which shows the shadow representing loss and sadness. He feels that illustration is always defined by its relatedness to something else e.g. a piece of text or an event. There is a link to Modernist ideas that text (clarity, reason, autonomy) is above image (ambiguity, suggestion). Like ‘The Simlie of the Cave’, he aims to communicate purely through image and express a sense of feeling, emotion and mood. Find out more about this and look beyond the aesthetic.

'Lucia' and 'Luis and the wolf'

The two video's below are called 'Lucia' and 'Luis and the wolf'. I established them through attending the Shadowplay Event. Directed by Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociña & Niles Atallah, the animations were presented as an installation in the Diluvio Gallery and it instantly stood out to me. I was intrigued by it’s creepy and unsettling atmosphere. I think they are about dreams and a child's imagination and perhaps it plays on a child's reveries. I really like the way the animation has been constructed, the mixture between real environments/objects with the organic drawings is an effective juxtaposition. I like the play between dreams and reality. The drawings on the walls and the way they are animated seem to become alive which is something I'd like to have with my work, this is one of the reasons I am drawn to working in 3D because it helps to give the illusion that drawings/models are coming to life.

Luis

Lucia