Category: 3D

Time Machine Tutorial

by N4 Sketch Pad, posted in 3D, illustrations, pop-ups, workshops

img_8945For those who couldn’t make it to my recent workshop at Imagine Festival of the Arts in Sutton, here’s a video tutorial for the pop-up time machine. It comes in two parts: how to draw the time machine and how to make the pop-up. 

The theme of the festival was HG Wells – he lived in Sutton at one stage – and I based the time machine on the one in the 1960 film. I did take a few liberties: the time machine in the film doesn’t actually move location but instead the surroundings change as the date changes. I designed the pop-up to make the time machine look like it’s moving through time and space to give a more dramatic effect.

The basic abstract design is nice in itself and can be used to create all sorts of designs.

 

Imagine Festival of the Arts

by N4 Sketch Pad, posted in 3D, pop-ups, workshops

I’m very pleased that Sutton Council was prepared to book individual practitioners and not just groups and organizations for their ‘Imagine Festival of the Arts’ this month. Yesterday, we ran two 2 full family workshops and an evening session with a smaller, but perfectly-formed, group of adults.

As always, one of the exciting aspects of the workshops was the mix of people who attended. I like to think that the activities I offer work regardless of background and highlight the similar ways we all approach visual 3D problem solving. The workshops also work well for those who speak very little English, offering a means of communicating through the making and designing process.

Pop-up Flashback – small book selection

by N4 Sketch Pad, posted in 3D, Books, pop-ups, theatre

The video shows pop-ups from the second children’s theatre production I co-created for Wordpepper which finished it’s final tour earlier this year. The show was presented by Half Moon Theatre in association with Apples and Snakes.

I made 19 pop-up books in total for the show, from very small to extremely large constructions which opened up to form the set. The video shows a small section of the smaller ones. These presented a type of illusion, being made to look like full books but often containing only one pop-up design to illustrate a moment in the show.

Popping up in Stopsley

by N4 Sketch Pad, posted in 3D, pop-ups, Schools, workshops

I was back in Stopsley Primary last Friday to see Y4’s finished pop-up books and to talk to the parents about the 2 day project. After learning a number of basic techniques on day 1 and sharing them between classes, the children went on to develop these in their own individual ways to produce books combining text, images and pop-ups.
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I felt they had achieved a fantastic result and there were plenty of examples of where the children had experimented, come up with original ideas and managed to figure things out for themselves.

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One girl inverted the large V fold to create a parallel plane on which to stick a palm tree – hard to explain but it makes sense if you look at the picture (last one) – and I’m not quite sure how she figured this out. One boy created an arch based on the vertical V fold which probably would have been too complicated to teach to that age group in the first place. Unfortunately, no picture for that one but the point is they were able to come up with their own designs and techniques using what they’d been shown on the first day – very impressive!
Also worthwhile mentioning the wonderful teachers who took part in this, in particular, Jason Sutch who co-ordinated the project.

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Stopsley Primary

by N4 Sketch Pad, posted in 3D, Books, pop-ups, Schools, workshops

First school of the year tomorrow at Stopsley Primary in Luton for a 2 and a half day project in pop-up book design.

Day 1 will consist of learning the basics. Each of the 3 Year 4 classes will learn techniques which they will then share between them before my next visit. Images show the ‘manual’ I’ll be leaving to guide them and to show the starting point for day 2 when we develop the books further.

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Britannia Village Primary

by N4 Sketch Pad, posted in 3D, Books, boxes, pop-ups, Schools, workshops

I was back at Britannia Village Primary School last Monday for Day 2 of our paper (cardboard) engineering project. As Year 6 set off for France with their giant pop-up constructions, Year 5s (3 classes) stepped up to the plate to start work on a pop-up reinterpretation of Alice in Wonderland set in London.

Britannia Village Primary sml

I was impressed by the way they took inspiration from Boxpark in Shoreditch, the surrounding streets and graffiti they photographed. I gave them guidance with the construction of the main framework and worked with a small team to get it in place and glued, while the rest of the children got to work on the other smaller components. They were given broad instructions for the painting of the structures but apart than that they were completely free to bring their own ideas to the final surface decoration.

Also very gratifying to see how all the teachers had used what they learnt in the initial inset session to help their pupils create small-scale pop-up pieces before my arrival.

World Book Week 2015

by N4 Sketch Pad, posted in 3D, Books, pop-ups, Schools, workshops

Back-to-back schools last week for the week of World Book Day. A lot of advance planning is always required for these but the enthusiasm of the kids and their eagerness to dive in and get creative always make it all worthwhile. This year’s schools were St. Pauls in Friern Barnet, All Saints in Fulham, Coppermill Primary in Walthamstow and St. Pauls and All Hallows in Tottenham. Here’s the montage:

book week 2015