Uncle Albert

This was one of my favourite-est self directed projects. I wanted to do something science-based for the degree show ... and this was it. Done in the last few weeks of my degree, these were cover re-designs (and endpapers/title pages) for a set of children's books by Russell Stannard called the "Uncle Albert" series. They are fictional, but use storytelling to teach kids the principles of quantum physics. The books revolve around Uncle Albert (Einstein) teaching his niece Gedanken all about the wonders of the universe by magically being transported into his thought bubbles; and I loved them from my very first read.

I read them initially when I was doing my Post Graduate Diploma in Science Communication (yes, I have too many qualifications), where my dissertation was on "science writing for children"; and have always wanted to put my own slant on the covers. Here's each of the three covers with accompanying endpapers and title pages (they are animated gifs - so some of you might have browsers that don't allow it!)




Some sketchy images...

Alice's Adventures on Planetmithi

Finally ... its all over. Although "the end" was a few weeks ago, we've had a couple more shows in London, which meant that I have still been preoccupied with college life - till last Friday that is. At 5:50pm Friday I started taking down my work from the walls at the Coningsby Gallery; wrapped up books/portfolio/chair; Sunshine then proceeded to come pick me up and we stuffed everything in the car; I said my goodbyes; and we headed back to Bristol. Apart from the graduation ceremony in November - I will not need to have to do anything with the university ever again! Blimey! What a quick three years this has been ... Anyways, now I can finally sit down and spend the rest of the week updating the blog with all of this last few months worth of work.

This was my entry for the Puffin Cover Design competition to re-design Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.


I did a sneak peak of some sketchbook work earlier, but here's some more:


Over the next week I'll be putting up more stuff that was in the degree show ...

Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology vol 3 Cover

(click on image to see bigger)

This is what has preoccupied me the last couple of weeks ... Ok so it shouldn't take that long to design a book cover; but I've also had several bouts of helping with the interview process for the next batch of students coming in September; the last of my dance teaching sessions (including a intensive whole weekend workshop, and a private Charleston lesson) till July; lectures and personal tutorials with both Sarah Warburton and Gina Cross; AND it was my birthday last week :)

With all of that and also doing the illustration + design work on this - (which is a bit more involved than doing only the illustration) - the blog has been a bit quiet. But anyways, this is done and handed in. Almost the whole year have done entries for this - and they'll pick the best one to be used on the published anthology later in the summer. I'd quite like to win this, but I'm also just glad to have a good book cover in my portfolio.

Easter break is almost upon us - really looking forward to it ... but not too looking forward to the fact that I have two more book covers and two children's books to get done in three weeks ... meep!

Haroun's adventures ...

So this is the last of this semester's projects. We had to design two book-covers and we were allowed to choose whatever book we wanted (as long as we cleared it with the tutor first). I went with one of my favourite books - Salman Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories".

I wanted it quite tactile - for a while thinking that I'd make a set, then photograph it .... but that was just too much work considering how many other projects I had on. Instead I started playing with lots of cellophane sheets.

The first cover I did is quite colourful (refers to the streams in the 'Sea of Stories'):


I laid out lots of coloured strips that I'd cut, straight onto the scanner and scanned them in. I also tried adding several fish and water splashes etc until I found something that worked. It was all then composited in Photoshop and printed onto acetate (to give that translucent feel the original bits of cellophane had). Here's a photo of what the original strips looked like:


And examples of the scans are here.

The second cover is the last thing I did on Tuesday night before rushing to college to drop it all off. Part of the story refers to the people of the land of Chup - where their shadows are attached, but independent of them. Haroun comes across a warrior practise-fighting with his own shadow!

I made this up using more black and blue cellophane, photographed it and tried to composite it into a book cover in Photoshop. Somehow it just didn't work .... I tried all manor of iterations and it just wasn't coming together. Eventually I decided to go back to what I do best - hand made ... and so this is what I did ...


On a funny note, I did this, handed it in Tuesday night, and look what Rob Ryan put up on Wednesday on his blog.

Anyways, this is it for this semesters work ... I've got some time off now to do my OWN stuff (includng wedding planning!). I'm off to a zinefest tomorrow in London, and then visiting my Grandma ... will be back with further adventures soon!

Swordfighting with my Shadow

Part of something else I'm currently working on ...

Sea of colour

Mmmm... I like coloured gel sheets and scanners ...