Category: alumni

Alumni news – Sarah Bissell

Over the last few months Sarah Bissell, an ECA alumni and one of last years artists in residence has been working with Edinburgh Collage Collective on an international submission of collaged based work themed around the subject of envelopes. Setup in 2016 by collage artist Rhed Fawell, the collective has been working on exhibitions and events over the last year and currently is showcasing their latest exhibition, G.L.U.E. in our very own Tent Gallery.

The collective (comprising of seven members including Sarah Bissell and another of our previous artists in residence Megan Elizabeth Taylor) believes that it is important to reach out and link to other like minded artists globally particularly in this turbulent political climate. Through their most recent project they have connected with over 70 other artists and gathered over 140 artworks for display in the gallery and the feedback has been incredibly positive with plans to travel the exhibition and future open submissions on the horizon. To get involved check out the instagram page and keep and eye out for future eventshttps://www.instagram.com/edinburghcollagecollective/

Sarahs work is part risograph and part collage as she runs risograph printers The Gutter Press https://www.instagram.com/thegutterpress/ . Collage has always been a focus of her work but since starting her business late last year she has also been making risograph prints created from her original collages. Her work for this exhibition was looking at the excitement and intrigue you have when receiving post and she wanted to celebrate this and inject an element of fun to her subject.

The exhibition is open until the 28th so pop by if you’re in the area. If you have an interest in risograph have a look at The Gutter Press website and contact Sarah with any printing projects you want to get produced. Also watch out for the Edinburgh Collage Collectives future open submissions, they would love more people to get involved and to connect with more lovely collage loving people.

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http://thegutterpress.org/

http://www.edinburghcollagecollective.com/

Alumni travels

This month three of last year’s Illustration graduates, Drew Starling, Felix Miall and Hari Connor, took part in the Stojkow Arts Residency Programme in rural Poland where they were able to do lots of drawing and gather inspiration for upcoming projects. In this week’s blog post Hari shares her experience and some of her lovely work created during her week-long residency.

The residency is on this beautiful farm in the rural south of Poland, surrounded by meadows, rivers and forests. I love going out of the city to work on drawings at a slower pace, and I’m always inspired by nature and by making work together with other creatives. I’m really interested in observational drawing as an exercise, how the process of drawing changes how you interact with a place, making you slow down and appreciate tiny details, and how the final artwork can reflect one’s experience of the space. It’s also really interesting travelling and working with other illustrators, and seeing how different artists’ interpretations of the same landscape or object can completely vary.
I’m currently putting together a new book called ‘The Way I See It’ that collects my observational drawings from the last few years chronologically, finishing up with the work from this trip. The book will be small, and include notes and prose that I wrote at the time – I wanted to recreate the feeling of handling something personal and intimate that you get when looking through someone’s sketchbook.

The book has gone to print, and should be arriving next week in time for launch at Glasgow Comic Con – I’ll be selling it online and bringing it to Thought Bubble after that. I’m doing a new, experimental comic that includes a huge amount of natural scenery and plants, but I’ve only sold short zines of my observational drawings before, so I’m really interested to see what people think of it in comics circles!

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Stojkow Arts Residency Programme was set up by Jessica Kettle who graduated from ECA Illustration in 2014. For more information email jessicakettle10@gmail.com.