Celia Hume, a Level 6 student on the BA (hons) Illustration Course, has been ‘Highly Commended’ for entry to the The Macmillan Prize for Children's Illustration. This is an prestigious competition, held annually. The award, has been running for 29 years and, has discovered such talent as Emily Gravett and Sara Fanelli – now established in the field.
The 2014 award judging panel was made up of former winner Emily Gravett; illustrator David Roberts; Melissa Cox, Children’s Buyer for Waterstones; Lorna Bradbury, Deputy Literary Editor of the Telegraph; Chris Inns, Art Director at Macmillan Children’s Books; Ella Butler, Head of Campbell Design and Suzanne Carnell, Publishing Director for Picture Books at Macmillan Children’s Books. The panel viewed 328 entries for the award before picking a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winners.
A further 20 students were then ‘Highly Commended’ for having work that stood out to the judges. Celia’s book ‘Copy Cat’, based on her own cat, the story was picked by the judges for being funny and observational. With years of teaching in a Primary School, Celia hoped that this book would be read to a class and aimed to make the visuals draw the children in.
Graduate Dominique Byron's first solo exhibition comes after a successful two years in Illustration, which include working on projects as diverse as film posters and album covers to children’s books. Dominique is now Creative Assistant to acclaimed Manchester illustrator, and former exhibitor at Kosmonaut, Stanley Chow. At Kosmonaut - Friday 7th March- Wednesday 2nd April.
As part of an integrated project with 'Context', Level 4 students where introduced to the idea of existentialism. We explored this through presentations and discussions as a group. The students the chose existential characters from literature and film and got under their skin to try to understand how they viewed the world. This included characters from the film 'Drive', Kafka's 'Metamorphosis', 'Don Draper' from Madmen and King Lear. They then worked in groups to draw imaginary scenes of what would happen if their existential characters met.
On the study trip to Prague in November, a group of us visited the studio of fashion illustrator, Irina Kaygorodova. We were treated to a Masterclass led by her. We got to see how she works with fashion based reference to create beautiful portraits. We then go to try it for ourselves. Thankyou Irina, it was a real treat. See the full film here, screen shots are shown above.
2013 graduate Hannah McLennan Jones has been interviewed about her work for This is Not A sex Shop for online magazine. She talks about her passions, inspiration and the idea behind her brand and how she has started to crave a name for herself. Also the story the behind how Kate Nash got to know about her work. Read the interview here.
News about our wonderful friends of the course Lord Whitney, who over recent years have set projects for us and done a block of teaching with current Level 6 students. The girls have become part of The Full Service, a creative agency founded by the photographer, Rankin. The Full Service represents a team of talented designers, editors, creatives, photographers, set designers and producers. Well done Amy & Rebecca, we wish you every success and that you pick up lots of new clients.
A small group of Level 5 spent time this Tuesday evening at Bridgehall Kids Club at Bridgehall Community Centre. They designed Christmas Advent Colouring-In Worksheets, which some of the children got busy with. The students are about to start making illustrations for a Cook Book, which celebrates some of the activities and cookery classes that the Kids Club have been involved in this year. The Kids Club have received funding
from various sources to be able to carry out a healthy cooking project with the
children and is linked to the national ‘change4life’ campaign, which encourages children and parents to
eat more healthily.
The Kids Club have compiled 24 recipes that the children have made, they would like this book to be seen as inspired by the children, but which will appeal to adults to try the food. They would like to sell the books to raise funds
for the group. We attended the Kids Club to get a feel for the atmosphere and meet the children. There were some real characters who kept us throughly entertained and taught us new lingo!
