A New Year

I wish you all the best for 2022.

I’ve been away from here for months whilst I’ve been concentrating on stop motion animating. Most recently, making and stitching together some clips by learning to use a video editor. The clips were made for an annual Instagram challenge – “Folktaleweek” – which is hosted every year by a group of illustrators who devise 7 prompts for themed illustrations, one per day. This year’s prompts were: Moon, Dream, Awakening, Feast, Bird, River and Sky.

I used them to make up a story using animation and this is the result. (No sound) It’s about a Girl who dreams that the Moon comes down from the Sky. She is told by the Forest Ancients that she must find Moon and return it. Rook helps her to search for Moon and together they return it to the Sky.

It’s been a bit of a hair-pulling learning curve. But I made it!

Folktale Week 2019 Again

closeup of 2 plasticine heads and smartphone

“So I decided to rework my drawings for this year’s Folktale Week as digital versions, thinking it makes a kind of storyboard. This is a collage of those images … or parts of them. The prompt words were: Home, Secret, Path, Smoke, Dark, Key and Crown. And I was so surprised that I seem to have told a story! I was tickled pink as you might say.”

collage of fairy tale illustrations

Folktale Week 2019

closeup of 2 plasticine heads and smartphone

“OK. You want to see some folktale week drawings?”

pen drawing of child in the dark

“This is Day 5 – DARK.  Done with a fine technical pen.”

6key

“Day 6 – KEY. Technical pen with collage and watercolour.”

technical pen and colour drawing of head wearing crown

“This is Day 7 – the final day of prompts – CROWN”. This is done with technical pen and collaged colour and watercolour.

I think this is all a bit creepy. Who on earth is that little man inside the crown?