For the second time in less then a week I have lost myself among Charlie Chaplin, Captain Jack Sparrow, Indiana Jones and countless other Hollywood greats at the V&A's fantastic new Hollywood Costume exhibit. 

'When it's well designed costume embodies the psychological, social and emotional conditions of the character at a particular moment in the story.'

It really is amazing to see such iconic pieces in person, costumes so full of character and history you can't help but be swept away.....

Alongside the brilliant costumes there are interviews from designers such as Colleen Attwood and Sandy Powell and directors Tim Burton and Martin Scorsese! Definitely a must see!

Some sketches from this mornings pootle around.....

Well! First little bit of uni has left me whacked, but it has been good and have met some great people so I'm doing ok. Straight away we were into project work so as to wake us all up and get our creativity flowing again, at first it was a struggle but hey after a while I got into a good rhythm!

Basically, we had two weeks to design costumes, lighting, props and write a script and perform the whole thing in groups, crikey I can assure you, there was a definite wave of panic throughout the 120 students.....we were put into 'clans' and given a material to work with - my group got Ice - and chose a story from Camelot. We then had to create a relationship between the material and the story. Well, this is what happened.....

Initial costume design I sketched out after early  group discussion.

Experimenting with texture - create the illusion of frost and ice on the costumes by using porridge!

'White Ice' by Anya Gallaccio. Her work helped inspire the aesthetic of the Ice World . We tried to create the illusion of  this sort of image through our use of sound in the theatre.

Rachael modelling our rather dashing make up.

 

 

 

                                  

 

 Final designs for the story teller and Warrior.....

Onto a drawing project based on a piece, any piece at all, in the whole of The National Gallery - me being me I was drawn to a dark piece full of mystique and unusual characters.....'Witches and their incantations' by Salvator Rosa.

Image from www.gandalfsgallery.com