Mythical creatures

This project was my final major project at university. I decided to use the theme of mythical creatures. This seems to be a re-occuring theme for my illustrations and one that I really enjoy working with. I took inspiration for this project from the story of the cottingley fairies. The story of two little girls creating an illusion of fairies at the bottom of their garden using drawings they had done by adapting a story book that they had and taking photos of them using long exposure. I love the idea that these two girls managed to fool so many people into thinking that the fairies were real just by using essentially puppets and clever photography.

I started my project by creating my mythical creatures and I decided to do a cross between insects and birds. these are two things that are commonly found in any garden and also that i enjoy drawing.

These are my original drawings. I wanted to keep my animals as unexplained as possible to keep the viewer guessing what they were. to create a 'real' feel to my animals i decided that having the images as they are here wouldn't be in keeping with my theme so i took inspiration from indonesian shadow puppets and decided that doing something similar to this would be the best way to display my animals. so i made my drawings into puppets and took them into the photography studio where i set up a light box and created shadows using the puppets of my drawings and these formed my final images.

these are the finished illustrations which I was very happy with. i think the air of mystery is maintained and thats exactly what i wanted to do.. keep people guessing!