Wednesday, 7 September 2011

The Tiger Who came to Tea

A retrospective exhibiton of Judith Kerr the author and illustrator of 'The Tiger who came to Tea' and 'Mog'. I just caught the last day of this exhibition fortunately in time as it was very inspirational to walk through Judith Kerr's work and life. On display there were drawings by Judith Kerr when she was only ten years old of children walking down the school steps and playing games in the playground. All done by memory yet the faces on her drawings had a great style already at the age of ten!
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit was a fantastic story of her childhood memory of leaving Germany during the war. The exhibition showed original drawings and watercolours and her inspiration for her stories, her family.

Brian Wildsmith

Brian Wildsmith, children Book illustrator, uses a unbelievable amount of colour and imagination.
Very inspiring as he has such a traditional technique of water colours and inks with beautiful patterns and characters. His first picture book was in 1962 for which he was awarded the kate Greenaway medal.

Jemima Brown

Jemima Brown, sculpture artist, mixed media and drawer. I found her work in 'The stuff of Nightmares' exhibition at the museum of childhood, she displayed a human size sculpture of a little girl with over sized hands and head to give a rather terrifying look to fit in with the nightmare fairytale. Her work is produced with such quality it is very realistic and effective in the way she displays her pieces in unusual and usual circumstances. She likes to use narrative in her work and toy with the animate and inanimate description.

Sharon Brindle

A artist teaching at the Prince's drawing school and the museum of childhood which has her work currently displayed for 'The Stuff of Nightmares' exhibition.
I looked up her name for other works by her and found some beautiful life drawing. Her subtle colours and attention to soft detail and shadow gives each piece a dreamy look about it.



The Stuff of Nightmares

V & A exhibition 2 July - 26 Feb

The stuff of nightmares showcases work of Daniel Bell, Sharon Brindle, Ruth Weinberg, and Jemima Brown. The exhibition discusses the dark side of fairytales and is displayed at the front room gallery of the Museum of Childhood. It explores what fairy tales were like before they were sanitised for children, something I'm fascinated with.
The artists who set up the show worked with primary school children to create a line up of children's toys throughout the years that could be possible suspects for the villain in Fundevogel, grimms fairy tale story.

After the line up of creepy characters, there was a section of pencil and ink drawings by the artists. I particularly liked Sharon Brindle's pencil crayon drawings on soft pink paper, she had captured the demonic eyes two twin dolls can have when their eyes have both shifted to a unnatural position. The effect of using a soft pink paper for the main body and using only a light white coloured crayon to rendered the faces gave a great effect of enchantment and reality.

Daniel Bell also attracted my attention as he has created very atmospheric images of the toys that you can find in the museum with only pencil, or graphite. The composition he used in 'Brother' is very effective as he only used half the dolls face in view, which gave a terrifying close up image of the toy which you would not normally see a doll in that way.