Fabula Word Project Is Back!

As you may know we have been very busy exhibiting but soon we are going to return to our wonderful word project. This has been an exciting project for us in the past because all of our members UK and overseas can be involved. It's always fun to see different interpretations of the same word and a challenge to try and respond to whatever is suggested.

We thought we'd post a selection of past words here to wet your appetite for more that will come soon...

Clockwise from top left: by Louise Dennis, Juliette Rajak, Madeleine Swift and Nele Anders.

The way that it works is that each new word is put forward by a different Fabula member for everyone to respond to. It isn't just single images that have been inspired by this project but also small sequences or stories - for example 'A Square' by Somin Ahn (a short story about a cat - see previous post about Somin Ahn) and 'Give Me A Cuddle' by Jay Eunji Lee.

Clockwise from top left: by Clara Weifu, Nele Anders, Penelope Chong, Louise Dennis, Somin Ahn, and Juliette Rajak.

We find it a creative way to work together across continents and a good way to inspire new work. We will be posting our next words soon - so watch this space!

Clockwise from top left: by Clara Weifu, Jay Eunji Lee, Katherine Perrett, Louise Dennis and bottom left by Juliette Rajak.

EXPOSE! - illustrated word by Louise Dennis

After playing around with different ways to light some cardboard trees I had made I then took the results into Photoshop and made this image. It's up to you to decide whether the character is burying something or digging something up!

You can see more of my work at www.fabulacollective.com

Drawings Inspired by a Tiny Train at Hove Museum

In the Toy Trek game upstairs in the Wizard's Attic at Hove Museum, there is a tinplate steam train in a glass cabinet commemorating the coming of the railways to Brighton in 1841. It is dwarfed by playing cards and framed by an oval window in the display about a metre off the ground. It is easily overlooked and it tells of a time when Brighton was opening up to the world. 

During residency at Hove Museum, Fabula member Penelope Chong has spent many hours drawing this tiny object literally from the different viewpoints of an adult, a child and a toddler. 

The act of drawing is an act of scrutiny and this close examination has helped her to reflect on the different lives of objects. As a toy this was made to be played with: Stories of the passengers - the driver and the stoker  too - could be imagined as they were glimpsed through the carriage windows. It bears the fingerprints of ‘giants’ - the children that played with it. Now it sits behind glass as a museum piece, telling a different story.

The toy casts a dramatic shadow that Penelope has incorporated into her drawings. She says she was straining to see the detail in the train because of the size of it and the lighting conditions. This was a reminder to her of the passing of time and that her sight is deteriorating as she gets older. An interest in shadows and scars: ephemeral versus permanent is a recurring theme in Penelope’s own work and perhaps that is why this small toy train held her interest and why she dealt with it in this particular way. 

We thought you would find it interesting to see Penelope's sensitive drawings and to hear some of the thoughts bought about by the process of drawing a small toy train.  Next time you're at Hove Museum why not have a close look in The Wizard's Attic and see if you can see the little train? Maybe you'll see it a different way and bring your own story to it.

Penelope is a Brighton-based artist who is just as likely to pick up a scalpel or needle as a pencil or paintbrush, and enjoys working in a range of media and on a variety of surfaces, including live plants. She studied Fine Art Printmaking at Brighton University gaining a First Class Hons degree and she is midway through the MA in Sequential Design/Illustration. See more of Penelope's work at www.fabulacollective.com

Artists from Fabula will be in residency again at Hove Museum on Monday 29th August - do come down and see what we are doing. 

Animal Characters by Pip Carter

 Here are some new images from Fabula member Pip Carter. Pip has recently started working in ink/nib and watercolour wash - she is really enjoying the results and it's great to see what she's been working on. Her focus has been on developing her portfolio for the children’s book market. She has been drawing animals and children with an aim to keep a strong feeling of energy, dynamism and emotion in her work - we think it's working!

During her MA Pip developed a picture book for older children. If you'd like to see that and other examples of her work please go to www.pipcarter.co.uk or the Fabula website www.fabulacollective.com

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy these characters!

Silence! - another illustrated word

Another interpretation of SILENCE. For this one I was thinking about how the snow insulates us from sound, all the traffic stops and life can become a bit simpler (in some respects) for a while. You can see more of my work at www.louisedennisillustration.co.uk or on the Fabula website www.fabulacollective.com

Our story making collaboration - The Story Cabinet - shh!

Right, here is a little visual taster to get you in the mood.

It's very much work in progress and so it's hard to say exactly what the finished piece will be. In a way, we don't want to spoil the surprise: however, we're going to tell you a little bit about it now and more to come later.

What it will have are some well-known stories woven into the finished piece and it's very likely that you will see some influences from Hove Museum's collection.

One certainty is our intended audience  - we are making it to appeal to families.  Another is that the combination of us all working together will result in something that wouldn't be possible for any of us on our own. This work may end up described in many ways once it is finished. We're thinking it will be exciting, beautiful, mysterious, educational, interesting and fun - but we are biased and we couldn't possibly specify how and why just yet!

We'd love to tell you more but you'll just have to wait for further posts!

You can see for yourself how our work is developing on selected Mondays until December because The Royal Pavilion & Museums have agreed to have us as artists in residence at Hove Museum. The next one will be in August - and i'll post the date in advance here.

Hove Museum - a place that inspires us to make art and stories...

...an ideal opportunity for Fabula!

In case you didn't see our first post - thanks to The Royal Pavilion & Museums this is where we are having our residency and producing work towards a family friendly exhibition and events to be held at the museum in December - we will be posting regularly about it all here.

Next Monday 18th July we will be at the museum again - we are a very friendly bunch and we'd love for you to come and talk to us and see what we are doing.

Here is a taster of what happened last time Fabula artists met to 'make' together at the Museum. 

This is Richard Clarke's work - these are explorations of ideas for a landscape towards a collaborative piece we are all working on. Richard Clarke is a multi-award winning Filmmaker and Designer. His works are considered to be a humorous and magical exploration of the human psyche. 

Here you can see the materials that Dagmara Rudkin has bought to the museum to work from. Dagmara's usual practice crosses the boundaries of Fine Art, Design and Craft. In her recently completed MA she used animations, paintings, illustrations and puppetry performance to tell a cautionary tale for children.

 

Katie Perret is working out some ideas here.  Katie is a photographer who uses analogue photography and her work is concerned with the quiet act of looking and perceiving.

Each artist uses their preferred working method - drawing, writing, photographs, prints or constructing maquettes to build upon their ideas towards finished pieces. 

Here you can see that we are using photographs that we have taken of artefacts from the museum's permanent collection to work from for inspiration. Louise Wishart is using her sketch book to develop her ideas. Lou uses a mixture of watercolour and dyes alongside hand printed tissue papers that she makes herself. She then scans them and manipulates them in Photoshop. Lou's work is concerned with capturing the interesting, everyday, quirky bits of ordinary life.  She is planning to illustrate the museums permanent collection in a short book to be exhibited in the December exhibition - we're looking forward to seeing that!

Dagmara uses delicate tissue paper here in her working process.

If you'd like more information about Fabula artists (we are a big group!) please go to  www.fabulacollective.com

It's very special to have the support of the local museums because, although we have many overseas members, we are a Brighton-based art collective, formed here in 2014. Having the time and space to work at Hove Museum, surrounded by so much to capture our imaginations is very timely for us as a collective.

We're excited by the chance to connect with the local public through the residency so do come and see us next Monday 18th July -  or on on selected Mondays (check this blog)  until December.

SILENCE - illustrated word by Juliette Rajak

Juliette has made this sensitive drawing of a sleeping child to illustrate SILENCE. She enjoys creating new ideas for narratives and likes to work with traditional processes, such as etching and aquatint, mixing them with collage and other media. www.julietterajak.com

A little look back - Fabula at Phoenix Gallery - exhibition wins an award

In May and June we were pleased to exhibit at The Phoenix Gallery in Brighton as part of the 'Press & Release 2016' bookarts exhibition. We were thrilled to hear that the exhibition, curated by Maddy Rosenberg and designed by Curious Space, was the
winner of the Brighton Fringe Visual Arts Award 2016. We'd like to thank Phoenix Gallery for inviting us to be part of this exciting exhibition and congratulate them on winning the award.

The north gallery had an amazing exhibition of international book artists curated by Maddy Rosenberg.  The work was displayed impressively on structures designed by Curious Space and built by Ben Thomson.

Our work was exhibited with Sussex Bookarts Collective in the South Gallery in a display called 'Stories about Stories' - definitely what we're about! Also we took part in the table top book event 'Connect and Collect' and Fabula members Vanessa Marr and Pip Carter ran a workshop making handmade books.

Photos below show a cabinet of examples of our work that gave a flavour of Fabula.  The cabinet contained picture books, small models and books made to show working process, single images in sequence, narrative textiles, handmade books and short stories. There was also a chance to see films made by the five film makers in Fabula who also had their films on show throughout the exhibition.

The images below show the workshop led by Vanessa Marr and Pip Carter and some examples of books made.  This was part of the 'Connect and Collect' event. It was a lively but relaxed space where members of the public had a chance to have a go at making handmade books.

We were part of a tabletop exhibition during the 'Connect and Collect' event and all of our books were on display.

Looking forward to the next exhibition, coming soon - watch this space!
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Fabula in Residency!

Here's some great news! - thanks to The Royal Pavilion & Museums we are having a Residency at Hove Museum and we started this week!

We will now be at Hove Museum on a regular basis in preparation for an exhibition at the museum in December. Fabula artists Dagmara Rudkin, Juliette Rajak and Katie Perret got stuck in straight away finding inspiration from the museum's collection of toys.

We are very excited to have this fantastic opportunity. On certain Mondays, up until the start of the exhibition in December, we will be creating work for the show - working on a collaborative project as well as our own individual work.  We'll let you know when we'll be there as we go along and we hope you'll come down and see what we're up to. We'll also tell you more about the residency and the forthcoming exhibition here over the next few months.  All we can say for now is  - there will be lots of variety, it will be story-based, we will be producing work influenced by the museum's collection and there will be something for the whole family to enjoy.

 

SILENCE - illustrated with analogue photography

Katie Perret has made this beautiful response to the word SILENCE using analogue photography. Fundamentally her work is about the quiet act of looking and perceiving, observing the usually unobserved spaces and capturing the light of this space on the negative and weaving these images together to form narratives. More of Katie's work can be seen at www.fabulacollective.com and at our our next exhibition in December - details to be announced soon!

SILENCE - the new word!

Here's Clara Weifu's illustration for SILENCE. See more of her work at www.claraweifu.com

We really like Clara's drawing style which worked brilliantly for her MA project. It's a story about a traveller who falls asleep and the dreams that he has - you can see this on her website too.

Paper cut outs and shadows

Carrying on with our illustrated words - this is Penelope Chongs response to the word REPEAT.

See more of Penelope's work at www.fabulacollective.com

More images to illustrate the word REPEAT!

Inspiration can come from anywhere! Juliette Rajak says the repetitive task of making sandwiches everyday is where she got the idea for this image - the shape of the trees echoes the clasp on the bread packet.

See more work by Juliette at www.julietterajak.com

Clara Weifu is thinking of REPEAT in a similar way and illustrating things she does everyday.  We like the way she has made them into a PATTERN 

www.claraweifu.tumblr.com

More Images to illustrate the word REPEAT

This illustration by Nele Anders is inspired by thoughts about memory loss and repetition see more of her work at www.neleanders.com

To Illustrate REPEAT Pip Carter has been looking at birds  - lots of seagulls to see here in Brighton!
Check out her beautiful picture book "The Winged Things' for older children at www.pipcarter.co.uk

More soon!

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Word of the month continued...REPEAT

Fabulas: LOUISE DENNIS.. 'Repeat' March 2015

To see more from the talented Louise Dennis check out here new website.. 

www.louisedennisillustration.co.uk

We are a little behind on our word of the month due to being super busy with our exhibition in China.. to read more check out how it went here... http://www.fabulacollective.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/normal_1.html

Keep a look out for the rest of our REPEAT word of the months!

Fabula Collecitve's 'Word Of the Month' is BACK!!!! Our word of the month... REPEAT

We are catching up a little with our word of the month...We will be posting images from our March 2015 word which was 'REPEAT'. 

CLARA WEI FU - 'My Day Repeats'