This is the News!

For this project we had to take a news story and illustrate it using somekind of storytelling technique.
My news story was this:

"Harry Potter blamed for fuelling India owls' demise.

Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has blamed fans
of boy wizard Harry Potter for their role in the dwindling number of wild owls.
He said that Harry Potter books and films featuring his feathered friend Hedwig are popular in India and had contributed towards the demise of owls. Mr Ramesh said there had been an increase in people wanting to buy them from illegal bird traders. He was speaking to mark the launch of a report on India's owl population.
Written by the leading conservation group, Traffic, the report calls for tougher measures to protect owls ahead of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, which is being celebrated on Friday."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11673226

I decided to do an animation, in full pencil and watercolour. "I've never seen that done" I thought, "How interesting, I wonder why? I'll try it, I'm sure it will give an interesting effect."
After three solid weeks of no sleep, minimal eating and a lot of going completely stir crazy I have discovered why noone does it. It's insane! It also didn't help that, due to a mix up with the term timetable, our deadline was brought forward a week!
Eventually it got done. There was lots I would have liked to refine or change but, by the hand in date I was all for getting it done and away!

You can watch the final with sound here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUVU3AHKuNA

Bonus Bottle!

Because of the way I'd done the illustrated messages, pretty much all of the ones I put into the bottles and sent were just copies, so the last bottle and the message that went with it was just a note to explain this to my tutor, Martin.

And the final packaging!

Message in a bottle six.

Why its great to be driving.

And the packaging:

And the illustrated message in pen and ink:

Message in a bottle five.

Why Alfie and Billy Love Norfolk.

And the packaging:

And the illustrated message was a little book I made:

Message in a bottle four.

Things found on Brancaster Beach, Norfolk.

The illustrated 'message' inside was an embroidery I did of the creatures and things found on the beach:

And finally the packaging:

Message in a bottle three.

A combined trip to the National Potrait Gallery and London Zoo.

The illustrated message inside was a series of linocuts combining portraits from the gallery and the animals in the zoo that the portraits reminded me of:

Packaging:

Message in a bottle number two.

This one was: Things lost in the move.
Old House.

New House.

The box filled with sand and the bottle. A complete pain I'm sure for my poor tutor when he opened it!


And the packaging for this box still sticking with the sea theme (this one was my least favourite).

And the illustrated papercut message:

Message in a bottle.

To start off the second year and over the summer our tutor asked us to send him six 'postcards' relating to what we were up to. These could be anything and everything but packaging was also to be considered.

I decided to do 6 messages in bottles. I took some old antique medicine (and some poison) bottles painted on them and then put a illustrative message inside. Then (mainly because they had to be sent in the post) These were put into some cardboard decorated boxes and packed with sand. Phew!

The first one I sent was: Visitors to my garden.

Painting on glass in much harder than I'd imagined!

And the packaging for it (sea themed to go with the whole message in a bottle thing)...

And the illustrated message (there was also text on the copy and I'm afraid the watercolour hasn't come out very well in the photo):