Manchester Day Parade - June 2013

Here are my giant shadow puppet animals for the day parade!

I made them on behalf of the RSPCA Manchester and Salford branch. I designed the puppets with the crowds in mind, as they needed to be visible for the people at the back. There was no budget so once again I had to use my initiative and make the puppets as cheaply as possible! I spent months collecting suitable fabrics from the charity shops to create these patchwork animals. The shape was cut out of correx which was kindly donated from 'Walk the Plank' and I then attached the fabric onto this using carpet adhesive. I had very little time to make them, and with lots of hard work I got them finished on time. I was very pleased with the result, as was the Manager of the branch!

I chose to make the animals patchwork as they would be bright, colourful and fun, but also it tied into the idea of the RSPCA taking in animals and patching them up. I also jointed the animal puppets in the middle, so that they could 'walk' and the volunteers holding the puppets had great fun dancing along with them in the parade! They got a great response from the crowd, and it was an extremely enjoyable day. As you can see from the last photo, we weren't the only ones enjoying the puppets!

Vintage Garden Party

This is the 'Vintage Tea Party' event that I designed. I was able to collect items from charity shops to set dress the stage, and I spent a long time collecting 'rag' fabrics to make the bunting out of. The budget was extremely tight so I had to be inventive when finding materials! I spent months collecting all the bits and bobs, as well as pretty teapots,cups and saucers to give the event the right vintage feel.

I wanted an interactive element to the event so I made some simple photo props and created a photo area where people could dress up and have fun, which was a success as you can see!

Threshold

This is the book cover I illustrated for a writer friend of mine called Dave Hartley, who writes excellent short stories. I took inspiration from a story entitled 'Lips' that forms part of this collection.

Dave also created this video of the story using my illustration, it's rather good and very creepy, give it a look!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdOFSDDrJO0&feature=youtu.be

Here is the link if you are interested in buying a copy -
http://gumbopress.co.uk/threshold.html