Age UK Project

Part of the Age UK brief was to create an illustration of a famous Landmark around Stockport, to be used as a visual prompt for gathering relevant memories of local elderly residents. From the list of places to choose from, I selected Bramall Hall, a Tudor manor house. My personal reason for choosing it was because of a drawing I had done in primary school, of another Tudor manor, Little Moreton Hall- this was my first art to be published in some form, in my school's newsletter. I thought having another published half my lifetime later would be nice and fitting.

After some brief biro sketching from photos, I decided to try other things- I went to Bramall Hall to do some drawing on-location, which turned out to be a bit of a disaster, with my hands too cold to draw, and the session ending with snow. I reverted back to working from photos, though this time with different media. The first I tried was 'drawing' with tape, as suggested to me, to reflect the starkness of the black and white structure.

The nature of the process and the scale I attempted this piece at were both factors that controlled the simplified portrayal, a style I wouldn't have otherwise opted for with drawing, which was interesting.

To contrast the tape drawing, I decided to revert back to my more familiar style, painting with black ink.

I felt that both portrayals had different yet successful qualities, and so I have considered combining the two for entry to the booklet, depending on feedback:

Though unplanned, I feel they compliment each-other interestingly. Also, while writing this post, I made the realisation that I had been incorrectly spelling it Bramhall Hall, rather than Bramall... leading me to spell it that way on the tape piece. Thankfully, that mistake was made on an easy to rectify image! A nice little reminder to double-check things, even if they seem right.

Oops.

...

The final aspect of the Age UK project required a cover for an A5 booklet which is to contain the Historic Buildings + Wartime illustrations, here it is with my inclusion:

I took a photo of an old leather wallet for the cover, it's appearance working perfectly for the idea of history and memory- it resembles antique leather-bound books and journals, with very distinct ageing and a story to tell. I felt it worked equally well for both contained topics. To visually tie it in subtly with my Viaduct illustration, I faded the edges into the ink-stained background.