A lot of the exhibitions had business card and postcards. I am going to make some postcards and use some business cards from last year. Exhibitions have a theme running through them and are very simple. I'm going to make covers for the business card because they don't quite work for colours I'm using within the theme.
Going to see this play has helped me realise I don't need expensive detailed costumes. I can just 'find' them and alter them in an appropriate way.
Today I went to Harley Gallery Open studios day. The artists open up their studios and are available to show their work.
First I looked at the Exhibition in the Harley Gallery -"Beastly Machines". These are metal sculptures with interactive buttons to make the sculptures move. They were mostly animals and quite strange.
I looked at a sculpture in the shop by Christine Moss. it was of a horse and described as a 3-D wire drawing. I decided this could contribute to research for Mr Fox costume. I think it would be interesting to see if I could work with wire like Christine Moss but put around a mannequin.
Then my friend and I went around the studios. A textile artist was running a felt-making workshop. We both made a little flower brooch. This was good as usually we make flat felt. This could be incorporated into the fox costume. Hope and Elvis was good to look at. She uses old blanket fabrics to make new things.
At the Roald Dahl museum, I saw in the first room his life as boy, it had different letters he had sent to his mum from school. They were private, funny and showed Dahl's sense of humour. There were also photos of him and his family.
The next room was more about his life as an adult and ideas for his books. There was a sizing chart on the wall of the possible height of his different characters. Unfortunately I was the same size as Mrs Twitt.
There was a replica of his writing hut, which contained his chair and items which were important in his life e.g. a ball of foil, gradually made up from adding another wrapping from his daily Cadbury chocolate bar. There are some quite bizarre items e.g. shavings from his spine and the ball from his hip bone. There are also copies of his book covers and pictures drawn by his children. The routine he went through before writing was recorded as it was important to go through a ritual before starting the day's writing.
There was a section of the museum about films that have been made based on Dahl's books which I found particularly interesting - including the costume worn by Johnny Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate factory. It was interesting to see a film costume up close and seeing all the detail. This one was designed by Gabriella Pescucci. I hadn't noticed the details of Willy Wonka's cane before. It had tiny hundreds and thousands trapped inside. It has showed to me that I need to take more notice of details in film costumes. I noticed that Johnny Depp is smaller than he looks on telly.
There were also two sets from the Fantastic Mr Fox animation. The first was Mr Fox's study. It contained a replica of Roald Dahl's writing chair, which I thought was a nice touch. There was also the model of the pub from the same film. Again there was a great deal of detail - dustbins, Acer leaves and waste-pipes.
The Museum visit has been helpful. It has reminded me not to be so serious about the project. Dahl loved humour and I need to reflect this in my work. I am planning on making a mood board from the day.
