Under Milkwood (animated short)

Under Milkwood is a (radio) play by Dylan Thomas and I was given a brief to animate a section of it. This is only a first draft of the animation, but it is very nearly done. For now I will be handing this in and working on it a bit more before the end of term. It still needs some time edits, a title and credits. Watch in HD here.

Come closer now.

Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt and silent black, bandaged night. Only you can see in the blinded bedrooms, the combs and petticoats over the chairs, the jugs and basins, the glasses of teeth, Thou Shalt Not on the wall, and the yellowing, dickybird-watching pictures of the dead. Only you can hear and see, behind the eyes of the sleepers, the movements and countries and mazes and colours and dismays and rainbows and tunes and wishes and flight and fall and despairs and big seas of their dreams.

From where you are, you can hear their dreams.

This is a retelling of Aesop's fable The Cat Maiden whereby a cat is changed into a woman who behaves like a human at first, but returns to her basic instinct upon seeing a mouse.

Project 2: Editorial

This project was to take a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall article from The Saturday Guardian and illustrate it via drypoint or etching. I chose drypoint since it was a familiar technique and I could manipulate it much faster than with etchings. At first I did not like the sound of an editorial project as this was not my strongest point - but I do have a love for cooking and food, so this wasn't too troublesome. Plus I had to make these dishes so that I had something to draw from! This article is for 'Simple Sausage Recipes':

 

Project 1: Reportage for the Blue Plaque Society

This project was a simple one, but not without challenges. The first part was to go out, find buildings with a Blue Plaque on them, and then draw those buildings. The next was to make them into A2 posters that would advertise what they were. It was difficult trying to make such a simple image appealing, without drowning it in fancy, unnecessary design 'charms'. In the end I think I achieved decent results, limiting myself to pure tone and gradients:

Rome drawings

I went to Rome for a few days; here's a compilation of my sketchbook pages!

 Brave New World illustrations (cover, #2, #3, #1)

Pencil, Watercolours, Photoshop

October 2012

Sassy Beer Chick

I did a series of these for a card company, but it didn't go through. Here's one of the developed artworks for it though!

Scarlett + Emma Stone

Tear-away Fridays - a new portrait every Friday. Original pencils are all up for sale. Name your price, pay for postage and it's yours! If you want a coloured print, it'll be £5 postage included.

Marshmallows!

Marshmallows!

26th July 2012

Photoshop

A quick, fun little piece!

The Red Shoes

The Red Shoes

1st July 2012

Photoshop

I love this story; it always appealed to me because I love white dresses and red shoes and it has just enough macabre in it. I’ve always wanted to do a piece related to it, and I’ve had plenty of sketches of dancing ladies in preparation of it - but I finally decided to just go for it and make it a proper piece. So here it is!

Fullview it here: http://jessicaxyl.deviantart.com/art/The-Red-Shoes-311890148