Friday 28 October 2011

Lynn Weddle's Art Education Workshop

On Tuesday 18th October http://www.lynnweddle.com/ Lynn Weddle came to londonprintstudio to run a workshop on 'Running an Art Workshop'! Lynn is a photographic artist based in Brighton, with a huge amount of arts education experience - we had a fantastic day and learnt so much from her.

The morning started with some ice breakers - drawing our expectations for the day in less than five minutes (not easy), and all of us then knuckled down and thought about what makes art workshops/outreach projects different to learning in a school-based environment. The key elements that we all felt should run through a good workshop were an informal tone, practical, hands-on, supportive, flexible, engaging and just a bit of good old fun.

Lynn shared with us several of her experiences of running art workshops with a diverse range of young adults, including one project that saw her participants exhibiting their work on the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square! Lynn encouraged us to spend the afternoon planning and then running our own workshops which we presented to each other and received feedback on, pooling together everything we had learnt so far in the day. It was an intense afternoon, but fantastic to gain such insight from an industry professional on how to develop and implement engaging and memorable workshops for audiences of all ages.

Thank you so much Lynn! Here is a little comic recording the day:




Comic by http://merlinevans.com/

Thursday 27 October 2011

London MCM Expo

Hi everyone!

If you're free this weekend and in serious need to feed your comics hunger, then drop by at the London MCM Expo. They will be showcasing SCI-FI goodness, the latest films previews, game demos and a cosplay masquerade! But of course, the Comic Village is where all the excitement is happening~!



Both the lovely Jade and Susan will have stalls there, to sell their creative works. Jade will be selling her freshly printed, short comic called, "Click Click, BANG BANG!" (image above) as well as many other goodies. Susan will be selling her four page entry for the Observer competition, "Eviction" (image below). Both comics artists will be drawing portraits/commissions all day~!



Above is the layout plan of the Comics Village, so you all know where to find us! (Please click image to enlarge) We'll also be there to answer any questions regarding the workshops or the anthology that the londonprintstudio are organising.


On another positive note, our very own Merlin travelled far to the glamorous Cheltenham Awards yesterday, to collect her Runner Up Prize. Needless to say, everyone at londonprintstudio proudly held back tears of joy...!


- Susan.

Friday 21 October 2011

First blog post by the newest interns: Here we go!
Last week we had a chance to get out of the studio and explore London a little, which was great for inspiration (and for Shamisa, our Flemish intern, who has never been to London before!).

We started off with a visit to the people at House of Illustration, who are very supportive of our project. They’re currently running their second illustration competition in conjunction with the Folio Society, which you can find details of here.

We then visited the Sir John Soane Museum – a wonderfully eccentric collection of artefacts hidden away in the beautiful home of Sir John Soane. We were all in awe of the brilliant design of the house too, what with the original owner being an architect. It was fantastic inspiration for us to see such eccentricities in what should be simply an elaborate home – gave us all great ideas for settings and backgrounds in our comics!

After that we nipped across to the Hunterian Museum. This is a fantastic place for studying anatomy in many ways – from the outside and in! There are so many great specimens to look at and most of us took the opportunity to get some sketches in. A recommended visit for any artist.

Following a bit of a grossing-out at the Hunterian, we had lunch together – and it was a chance for Jade to snap a couple of pictures of the new interns. Unfortunately, Susan was at home with flu that day, and Jade was bordering on it so she stayed behind the camera – but you’ll get to see them in snaps of workshops at a later date no doubt.

Lily and Merlin~

Shamisa and Abe!

After lunch we headed for the British Museum – we visited the print rooms which had some beautiful, unbelievably detailed ink drawings, and the new Manga exhibition on the adventures of Professor Munakata. Seeing the original sketched, inked and screentoned pages of this manga by Hoshino Yukinobu was amazing for us as comic artists; it’s always a good experience to see how other comic artists go through their process of making a page.

Finally, we went on a hunt for comic book shops! We visited Forbidden Planet, which has an
amazingly well stocked basement, and Orbital Comics, which had an exhibition featuring some brilliant British comic artists’ self portraits. Our day of exploring ended there but there are plenty of other great places in London (and out of it) that you can visit if you want inspiration for your comics. So explore! Get out there! Informing yourself informs your comics and makes them much more interesting to read, so do it~!

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Shamisa Debroey looks to push the boundaries between illustration and strip, minimal and colourful, and topics like love and hate. She recently graduated from the infamous Sint Lukas Brussels under the careful supervision of Johan Stuyck, head of publishing house Oogachtend.  She received an MA in Comics and Illustration and finished top of her class. Growing up surrounded by comics made by Herge, Franquin and many other Belgian greats, she fell in love with drawing and storytelling. But ever since she was young, she never could colour in the lines. Mentored by Randall C., who also mentored up and coming comic artist Brecht Evens, she worked on her first graphic novel ‘The Wanderer’, merging the autobiographical with her lively imagination. ‘The Wanderer’ is to be published in 2012 in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Susan Yan Mach strongly believes that comics can truly communicate universally. Combining her Chinese and British cultural backgrounds, she creates and writes comics exploring mythology and folklore. Having studied Illustration within Graphic Design and Media in London College of Communication, she uses her bold, modern graphic style accompanied with semiotics to retell supernatural and surreal tales. She has had her work exhibited in the Marine Studios and Japan Matsuri festival. Using her cutting edge, contemporary style, she is currently drawing a series focusing on traditional Chinese superstitions and old wives tales.
Merlin Evans is a London based illustrator and writer, partial to taking hefty literary classics and plunging them head first into the world of lively, hand-drawn comic creations. Shaun Tan awarded her Emerging Talent runner-up for Cheltenham Illustration Awards 2011. This year she is published in 'Images 35: Best of British Contemporary Illustration' annual and exhibited at London's Cork Street Gallery. Previous clients include John Lewis, Mindapples and the House of Illustration. She is currently working on a graphic novel; an illustrated collection of love letters between great men and women throughout history.

Lily-Rose Beardshaw is an illustrator and comics maker who enjoys creating tactile artwork through handmade processes including inks, stitch and collage. She studied Illustration at the University of Gloucestershire and Comics at the Saint-Luc Institute in Brussels, and can speak and write comics in French. Her short comic 'Planet Rabbit' will be appearing in the Inspired Comics Sci-Fi Anthology this autumn. She is currently working on 'What's The Time Mrs. Woolf?', an illustrated independent 'zine for women and writing a graphic novel inspired by borrowed & constructed identities in everyday life.

Jade Sarson fuses her tea-loving British roots with emotion-driven Japanese influences from her childhood, and combines traditional techniques with digital. She recently graduated from the University of Lincoln with a First class Honours degree in Illustration. Her work has been featured in many anthologies including the Leek and Sushi series (ITCH publishing), Non Repro and Nami, and in 2011 won 5th place in the Japanese Embassy's Manga Jiman competition, awarded by Ed Ilya. She is currently working on her popular web comic Cafe Suada, a comic about (you guessed it!) tea.

Abraham Christie is a London based comic creator whose practice centers around a naive dissection of his life and neuroses. Utilising a childlike, playful scribble and bold colours, his art explores daily life and inner turmoil, often in the guise of superheroes. Abraham attended Central Saint Martins School of Art, where he emerged in 2010 with a degree in Fine Art. Since then he has concentrated on writing/drawing comics, primarily his daily strip Doodle Daydream and his zine, titled: Nervous in a Cape; copies of which were included in the reading room of Tate Britain's Rude Britannia exhibition. Abraham has sold and distributed his zines in many fairs and exhibitions, including the London Comic & Small Press Expo 2011 held at Goldsmiths College.