One week to go!

Illustrated Menagerie AR Scavenger Hunt/ We Shine Portsmouth 2022

Final preparations are underway for the 3 day festival of art and light, 17th - 19th November 2022 

We'll be at 3 locations with 35 illustrations augmented with animation, moving images and sound. One of many installations making up the festival, see the programme and artists at We Shine

Find us at;

Victoria Park (Near Portsmouth and Southsea train station)

St. Mary's Church, Fratton

Mountbatten Centre, Alexandra Park, Hilsea

From 5pm each day

Images shown here by Lily Milan and Jenna Beames

Call for contributions

Illustrated Menagerie AR exhibition

Calling all artists, animators and illustrators interested in nature, animals and the environment.

We will be hosting an augmented art exhibition, in the guise of a scavenger hunt, as part of We Shine Festival 2022.  https://www.weshineportsmouth.co.uk/ 

The festival will take place November 17 - 20th and we will be providing one of the interactive installations.

We are keen to hear from artists interested to take part with moving imagery, or sequential imagery, with or without sound, which would be seen as a digital augmented overlay when viewing a still image of the work using an app.

We will be handling printing of the material work (so you won’t need to send anything by post!) as the 3 locations for the exhibited work will be outdoors around Portsmouth. Work will be fully credited and linked to you online.

Register your interest by email to

nicola.hay@port.ac.uk

Evolution of the musteloidea - Ventsislava Neykova

Evolution, raccoons and red pandas. This animation shows the evolutionary cycle and connection of these musteloidea animals. Although they are different from each other, research shows that they are very closely related and come from the same root family.

Read more about this work and other animation and sequential pieces under the Sequential Illustration tab above

The Ringed-Tailed Lemur - Run lemur Run - Wuraola Ogunmowo

This work studies the movement of lemurs, the title is'Run Lemur Run' because lemurs in general are endangered animals in Madagascar. Their population rate continues to decrease every day and their lives have resulted into running away from their homes and finding it harder and harder to survive as well as keep their young alive. This is because of activities like deforestation, poaching hunting and even climate change.

Tiger Run Cycle - Jenna Beames

I researched big cats and their different characteristics and how this differs between each species. This lead me to settle on tigers, which are the largest of the big cats and are extremely powerful due to large musculature in their forelegs. I wanted to create a run cycle of a tiger with each movement broken down into about 21 frames.

Bats as Pollinators - Jazmin Johnson

Throughout this project, I researched bats and their importance within our ecosystem. I looked into many different conservations of Bats, and one which stood out the most to me was “Bats as Pollinators. This animated loop depicts the importance of pollination, and how “Bee’s have the day shift, Bats have the night shift”.

Sequential Illustration; A brand new module! The following posts are projects which illustrate something sequential about an animal

Ruby Gregory

This sequence depicts a squirrel trying to get to the food inside a squirrel proof bird feeder which is weight sensitive. meaning that when a squirrel attempts to jump onto it, it will spin stopping it from getting into the birds feeder.

The sequence shows that a squirrel won’t give up and will do and try anything they can to get their food, which I illustrated with a GIF I created on a loop to show a squirrels life on the struggles they would go through to get food.

I'd made leaf prints to use as a stencil on the squirrels to show its nature and where they live. I thought the effect of having the squirrels as leaves looked like another sequence of leaves blowing through the wind.

Anisha Sharma

I have researched dinosaurs and how our idea of them is constantly evolving as scientists and archaeologists discover more fragments of their history on the planet. For my final outcome I have created an animation of a hatching brontosaurus. I also wanted to link to their extinction with the comet flying through, which is the widespread belief about what caused these giants to become extinct.

Jade Haste

My project raises awareness of a deadly virus that affects red squirrels called squirrelpox. Red squirrels affected by this virus develop sores and scabs which leak discharge over time. The virus, when contracted, is serious and is a danger to their population, and the aim of my final outcome was to educate the viewer of the effects of the virus.

Emily Sampson

I have illustrated the lifecycle of the immortal jellyfish through animation as well as awareness for coral bleaching. This animation would be shown in an aquarium for children.

Crow's Fall

Some experimental animation work exploring the app Artivive with one of my animations inspired by the poem Crow's Fall by Ted Hughes. The app 'augments' imagery viewed through a screen superimposing it with whatever media you post to it, a really exciting way to combine static imagery and animation and to bring (as Artivive say) art to life.

Lino-mation

'Lino-mation'

Individual Lino cut stills printed by our students and and compiled as a group animation by Dominic Leatham (Leatham.co.uk)

Tegan Meredith - Research Methodology - The Hedgehog

For my Research Methodology project I wanted to research hedgehogs. I found them quite gentle creatures that feature often in children's stories as well as being one of the most recognisable woodland creatures in our British wildlife.

                                         

('The Fox and the Hedgehog' stop motion animation I created with Helena Sepehr)

Through thorough research I discovered that the hedgehog is declining quickly in population due to many environmental factors, including fatal attacks from predators.

                                                 

(Created using Charcoal and Adobe Photoshop)

Hedgehogs are vulnerable animals that are only armored by their spines. I wanted to look into how hedgehogs are protected as well as how they are seen in children's story books . This lead me to look into fairy tales and how the Enchanted forest is a place where the vulnerable, innocent character gets lost and found again. 

(Pastel drawing of my interpretation of the Brother's Grimm fairy tale, Hans My Hedgehog)

(Etching of a hedgehog and his Uncanny shadow)

I was inspired by the work of Tim Burton and Dave Mckean to create illustrations that narrate the Uncanny and fear that the hedgehog faces in a world where they are weak, and may perhaps be seen as an unusual creature alone in a frightening habitat.

(Final Piece created from acrylic paint print, clay sculpture, photography and Adobe Photoshop)

Hannah Lewington - Wolverine

For the Research Methodology project, I decided to look at the Wolverine as it had not been done before and it is relatively unknown to most people (apart from the Marvel character from X-Men). The Wolverine is an elusive animal that lives in Canada, Norway, Finland, Russia and some states in America. It is an animal that has little known about it due to the fact that they're constantly on the move, travelling up to 20km a day to scavenge for food. They have been known to take down prey much larger than them such as caribou and even polar bears, with a similar ferocity to its African cousin the Honey Badger.

I decided to focus on the Wolverine's paws in particular for this project due to their sheer size compared to the size of the Wolverine itself. This then became part of exploring the idea of the Wolverine's journey every day in search of food. I therefore created a variety of works incorporating this concept, using a 1:1 scale throughout.

The Gorilla

I chose to look at these ground-dwelling herbivores because they are powerful and intelligent. They live in social groups and often display gentle, human-like behaviour. Some able to learn basic sign language and communicate with humans. Would you believe 1 gorilla has the strength of 4-8 human men. It's incredible feats like these that made me want to study this magnificent creature. It's just a terrible shame that some species of gorilla are still endangered today. 

Short animations

3 short animations resulting from the Research Methodology project;

Save the Arctic
Pen and ink drawn animation by Aaron Baker

Gorilla 

Claymation by Johnathan Smallwood

How the Black Death Began 

Paper cut animation by Bryony Mellett

Fireflies

Fireflies by Fiona Simpson

Short animation - ants

Whiteboard and marker animation by Dale Sylvester, commenting on the social interaction of ants and the importance of pheromones.

Cat

Experimental animation by Holly Stanton

Bear (Ursidae)

Bears (Ursidae)

I was inspired by their intensely strong muscle mass and solitary nature. My visual developments were influenced by the bear's spiritual links with tribesmen and the duality of their nature “The bear was the majestic and luminous god of storms and sunshine”. During my visual developments I explored different ways of working such as, 3D work, Oil, watercolour, graphic novel form and animation.

Jonathan Scott