Summer work (July-September 2014) IC

Tuesday 8th July. 

Year 2 summer project is the foundation for the work that I will complete when I start in September. We have been given the choice of four plays,

‘Top Girls’ by Caryl Churchill

                         ‘Further Than The Furthest Thing’ by Zinnie Harris.

‘Osama the Hero’ by Dennis Kelly

‘Pitchfork Disney’ by Philip Ridley

Out of these I have chosen  ‘Further Than The Furthest Thing’ by Zinnie Harris. I chose this because its very matter of fact about the hard lives of the characters.

Synopsis

"Further Than the Furthest Thing takes place on an Atlantic island where years of isolation have created a community that is cautious, plain and blunt.When a volcano erupts, the islanders are evacuated to England where they're forced to shift from a primitive subsistence economy to industrial capitalism virtually overnight. Where once they tended their "patches", now they work in a factory making glass jars."

Thursday 10th July

This play includes the contrasting simple life and modern technological life. For my sketchbook I wanted to display these elements. For the simplistic element I used faux leather strips to attach the pages into the book while the outside reflects modern book making, having the style of golden embossed words and edges.

This book is made from simple cardboard (from the back of a children A3 paper pad), folded with an inch in the middle for the spine. The front is hand cut lettering in white card backed onto gold paper. I got the colour of the book by partially mixing Black oil paint and light Brown gouache and dappling it on with a paintbrush. My choice of paints was actually a happy mistake, the black oil paint had decided to mingle in with the gouache that day and I only realized after trying to mix it and finding it wouldn't quite combine. I really like the effect it created. 

Monday  14th July 

The play finally came today!! Only three days late. I've read half of it and underlined a few parts. So far I think its good, I look forward to knowing what happens next .

Wednesday 16th July

Finished the book today, I can't say I enjoyed it, it was very sad. I've just got to remember it was dramatized and the Tristan da Cuhna real story did not happen quite like that.

Over the past two days whilst reading the book I've been completing these first few pages, synopsis, author page and a page on the island that the story was based on. The two paintings are water colour.

Sunday 27th July 2014

It’s strange how something so remote can have a connection home?

The pictures below are of a man called Reverend Jack Jewell (1), he was one of the last people on Tristan Da Cunha when the volcano erupted in 1961, he is also a friend of my grandparents. My grandparents live in Surrey, not overly far from where the islanders were staying at former RAF Calshot Camp, image 2 shows my grandfather (far left) and Rev Jack Jewell (far right).

I found an article from 04 November 1965 saying “In Belfast, the reverand Jack Jewell, who was padre to the island said “ I expected this to happen [the islanders wanting to come back to england after they returned home], I doubt if the young people are coming for money – it’s the good times they had in england.”

Click here to read the full article and see a clip from 1961.

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