Last year, just before the lockdown, and after 6 years of living in Yeovil, a friend sent me a link to a local community of artists called Yeovil Creatives. After leaving university, I'd been feeling for a long time that I missed being around creative people; despite my job as a graphic designer, what I wanted outside of work was a more rough-edged, instinctive approach to creativity, rather than the high-end finish that comes along with my weekday job in the world of clothing.
Just before Christmas they asked me if I would be interested in participating in Window Wanderland, along with two other local artists – obviously I said yes, and I couldn't wait to get started. We were asked to create an activity sheet, to be sent out to 500 local families, as well as putting together a design for a window in the town centre.
My first steps were to make a Pinterest board.
We had a zoom meeting early on to work out which avenue we would each take, and I had decided by then that I wanted to look at the theme of the sea, and more particularly, at pollution and unnecessary waste, with the ultimately devastating effects on wildlife.
As a vegan I feel very strongly about the natural world and the effect that we, as humans are having on it. Here's a great article by the WWF outlining the issue.
From the Pinterest board, you'll see that I was drawn to shadow puppets, so I started painting silhouettes from images in the Natural History Book.
I scanned the silhouettes and used them to start putting together the activity sheet. I didn't want it to be too word-heavy, so the images really had to do a lot of talking. I used Photoshop to put it together, along with an extra template sheet.
So, now we're up to date with where I'm at, next steps are making the characters and scenery (along with a little help from the students at Yeovil College). In the activity packs we have also asked the families to send us a few of their creations to include in the town centre window – hoping to use these to make a whole shoal of fish. I'm currently unsure of the size of the window, but I have until Feb 15th, so am just going to make as much as I can before then!
Today I had a little play around with what I've made so far, in my windows at home.
To be continued...
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