Elsecar Iron Man

Today I have been working with Fabric Lenny at Elsecar Heritage Centre, helping nearly 30 children from Barnsley make an Iron Man out of cardboard. Fantastic!

Their inital Iron Man designs were great too...!

A Garden In My Pocket: Magic Frames

I am still very busy working with children in Kirklees on the Magic Frames film project funded by First Light Movies. Over the past few months myself and Fabric Lenny have been at Ashbrow School working with children to create a short animated film celebrating the magic of planting seeds and bulbs and growing fruit and vegetables in your own garden. The children have been using the pixilation animation technique and have created their own animation set to look like the inside of a potting shed. They have developed very precise animation techniques and have been a joy to work with.

The children have also worked with musician Nick Lewis to create their very own soundtrack. Well done everyone!

Magic Frames Begins!

Today was the first day of Magic Frames, an exciting filmmaking project I am working on with Fabric Lenny across four schools in Kirklees, funded by First Light Movies.

During our first day myself and Fabric Lenny worked with Y3 children at Battyeford Primary School to develop their story ideas, design the sets for the film and begin to construct cardboard props including a huge pirate ship. At the same time, Dan Mallaghan was working with children at Crossley Fields to help the children turn their amazing ideas into a script. There is a real buzz in the schools already and the children are fantastic! Please follow the Magic Frames website for regular updates from the children...

Lydgate Vikings Animation

I have just finished delivering an animation project at Lydgate School in Batley alongside artist Fabric Lenny. Together we worked with 31 Year 3 children in the creation of a Viking Animation film. The children developed fantastic imagery, created animatable characters and built huge sets, along with writing and recording the narration and animating all the characters. The children were a joy to work with and we had great fun. Here are some images captured throughout the process. More can be found on the Kirklees Arts4All blog, along with the final film.

Dancing With The Orange Dog

As part of the 154 Collective I am currently involved in the development of an eclectic theatre show which includes elements from a wide range of art practices, including photography, animation and film, through to the drawn line and dance. 

‘Dancing with the Orange Dog’ will tour three North of England venues in early 2013 and is being made under the umbrella of the ‘Routes North’ initiative. The venues are; Theatre in the Mill - Bradford, The Lowry - Salford and The Arc - Stockton. Keep up to date with developments via the 154 Website and Blog.

154 Pictures and Words Workshop

Last weekend myself and Dan Mallaghan, a fellow 154 Collective artist, delivered a Pictures and Words workshop as part of the 154 Exhibition at The Cooper Gallery in Barnsley. The workshop was based around our "Pictures and Words" collaboration and shared ways in which they could capture and process interesting images using mobile devices such as iPod Touchs, iPhones and iPads and use them as inspiration for creative writing. 

As a focus for the workshop we based all photography and creative writing around our next 154 Collective Show - Routes North and asked the group to work with us to capture images of Dan, in character, to be used as promotional and publicity material. The group were fantastic and produced some super images which contributed to the final publicity image, captured by Richard Hanson and further developed by Fabric Lenny.

More information on this workshop can be found on the 154 Collective Blog.

Photography Project featured on iOSsociety.mobi

The photography project I am delivering at Scholes J&I School is currently featured in the education section of iOSsociety.mobi which is very exciting!!  The article can be accessed through the archive button on the top banner, under 24th June 2012. The iOSsociety promote "iArtists, iCEO's, iCreators, iDevelopers, iEducators, iPainters, iPhoneographers & iPadographers with passion" and so I am delighted that my work within education has been featured. The iOSsociety spotted my work via a tweet that was sent by Fabric Lenny and was then retweeted by a few mobile digital artists throughout the world including Benjamin Rabe (Germany) and Mia Robinson (USA) ....so thank you to Fabric Lenny and to everyone who has shared my work! More information on this project can be found on the Project Blog.

Spital Hill - A Common Thread

I am currently involved in a new project called "A Common Thread Project" working alongside fellow 154 Collective artists - Richard Hanson and Fabric Lenny. Through this project we will be engaging with the community in the creation of a commissioned piece of public art to be displayed for up to three years on the 90m long hoardings outside the new Tesco Store at Spital Hill, Sheffield. Initial workshops have begun, along with lots of consultation. Below are some images I captured during a workshop of drawing, photography and discussion with children at Pye Bank Primary School, Sheffield. More information and images can be found on the Project Blog.

Magic Monster Machine

I have spent the last 24 hours working on a wonderful project at Elsecar Heritage Centre with Fabric Lenny and James Brunt. We were commissioned to work with 20 children to design, construct and animate a life size machine that will appear as an installation at Elsecar Heritage Centre to celebrate the launch of the Newcomen Beam Engine Restoration Project. It was a real challenge to complete all this work in just one day, but the children from St Helen's Primary School were fantastic and produced some amazing work. We documented the making process through stills photography and timelapse animation and have just completed the edits of the film "Magic Monster Machine" and the 'Making Of'. Phew!! Well done everyone!!

154 Exhibition now open!

Over the last few weeks I have spent most of my time working on the installation of the 154 Exhibition at the Cooper Gallery in Barnsley with Fabric Lenny and Dan Mallaghan, along with the amazing support of lots of gallery staff, Jemma Conway and many many more!! The Launch event went amazingly well and it was wonderful to see so many people come to support us and engage in the exhibition. It was also fantastic to meet Jonathan Grauel (USA) and Benjamin Rabe (Germany) who delivered a workshop to kick start the Launch. The exhibition runs until the 1st September so feel free to visit....it will make you look up, get down on you knees, listen, watch and contribute to the exhibition through drawing and writing, if you wish. Below are some images I captured on the Launch Day, more can be found here, plus the latest 154 updates can be found here.