The blog of Hannah Robinson, artist, illustrator and graphic designer.

Wednesday 6 June 2012

Peterborough Lions

I'm really excited to be blogging about a great artistic opportunity, and it will all be kicking off this Saturday at Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery.

About a month ago I was contacted by Stuart from Peterborough's Blok Collective, a group of local artists. He'd seen some work I'd done for a local competition and wondered if I wanted to be one of four artists who get to paint their own design on a life-sized statue of a lion. Guess how long it took for me to leap into the air, shouting YES!!!

For those of you that haven't seen, it's become a bit of a craze in the last couple of years to have statues of various animals dotted about British cities, all uniquely decorated by different artists. In London there were elephant statues all around the city, highlighting the plight of the Asian elephant. Go here for the whole story. There's also been gorillas in Bristol, as well as the SuperLambBanana statues in Liverpool some years ago. 



Now my city is getting Lions and Unicorns! They will all be standing on the platform to welcome the Olympic torch when it arrives by train into Peterborough on July 3.

This is the lion I will be painting this weekend. Isn't he a beauty?




I've got some preliminary ideas shown below here in acrylic, basically I think my lion is going to made up of many different brightly coloured illustrations, all connected to Peterborough, spread over him like a patchwork blanket. The illustration of a pomegranate represents Katherine of Aragon, who is buried in our cathedral. To this day people still leave flowers and pomegranates (the symbol of her family) at her grave.



if you live in Peterborough, come to the Museum this weekend to see me and the other artists painting our lions. I'm nervous but also really excited. The painting will be taking place over the next couple of weeks. I'll post pictures of his progress as I go.

Sunday 3 June 2012

Photoshop brushwork


At university I used photoshop a lot. Fast forward a few years and I'm shocked at how rubbish I am on it! I'm trying to create painterly pictures with it. Today I've been painting with acrylics and watercolour, and as soon as I find my cord, I'll upload the photos. 

The painting is to prepare for a really exciting project I'm involved in next weekend: painting one of four life-sized lion statues to go on display in my city, in preparation for the Olympic torch visit. This thursday I led a workshop with some Peterborough residents to come up with ideas for the design, it went really well. I provided each participant with a blank 'Peterborough alphabet', and they all filled in each letter with something from Peterborough. At the moment I know that the design will be colourful, and that it will involve intricate details from Peterborough's past and present, lots and lots of different elements all scattered all over.

In other news check out my friend's blog, a very talented and prolific painter and illustrator, Carly Allen-Fletcher

Tomorrow I'll be putting on my handmade red dress with the black dots, a dash of lipstick and beads, and going out on my bike into the city to celebrate the Jubilee, first at a Big Lunch where my giant greetings card will be signed by everybody and sent to the Queen (see blog post below), then perhaps onto the Green Backyard for more celebrating. If anyone else is celebrating, I hope you have fun!