Over the weekend, we didn't just do our own workshop. Similar to YSP we worked on the other workshops too. I spent most the weekend on the Green house workshop, helping the children create plants and creatures to fill up the Green house with. I ended up drawing loads of things to put up myself, the children were really liking them so I ended up drawing loads so that they could use them as templates or just some inspiration.
Half way through the day Cathy had to do a talk with Rob Flowers, which I managed to catch a bit of it during my lunch. Luckily when I got there they were talking about cartoons and toys from their childhood which inspired them and that they loved growing up. I really enjoyed the part of the talk that I got to see and it was interesting seeing some of the old toys that they have been inspired by. And you could really see their influences. Rob Flowers said one of the toys that inspired him, was collecting McDonalds toys, and went on to show us some slightly weird and creepy McDonalds advertisements that were on telly when he was a kid. But you could see the relations to his work.
Cathy, said she had travelled around a lot as a child so she had many different cartoon and toy influences. What I did notice in them both they were into collectable toys, ones where you wanted to get the whole set.
At the end of the first day, it was really lovely, as Cathy took the whole team over to a diner and bought us all food and drinks.
We all had coffees on the second morning from a place on the way to D&AD and they said 'there is no time to be tired' it made me laugh as I feel like I related to it so much.
On the second day, it was a bit quieter in the morning so we took turns to go and have a look around at all the work that was up and around. It was all so inspiring and the place was massive, there was SO many rooms filled with peoples work, it was amazing!
I took some photos of the place and the pieces that inspired me or thought were really clever.
During my lunch break on the second day, it was quite sunny so I went for a wander down the road. There was a little art market going on and came across this woman who creates these 'sofa buddies'I thought they were so unusual and wonderful, they were great! Her name was Rose Nisbet and I got chatting to her for a bit. She hand makes them all herself and just goes round doing different art markets and fairs around London and told me to just keep at it.
I took one of her business cards with links to her website and everything: http://www.rosenisbet.co.uk
Another person I spoke to was Julia Staite. She was running a workshop and selling her plush toys. I went to go have a chat with her and get some advice. She wasn't really the most sociable person, and was quite quiet and not up for talking much. But she did give me some advice, that before I can actually sell my toys in shops and places I need to get them all CE checked. She gets all hers printed some where that is all CE checked for her, but for me I will need to do it all myself as I get all my fabrics from the market. It has made me a bit worried as I don't know anything about this. But, glad she has told me as I didn't even think about that. I also asked her if she gets is all mass produced but she said she sews it all herself.
At the end of the day we all helped pack up and gave Jenny and Cathy a little present each from us all, which they really liked and appreciated! Overall, this has been such a great experience, and I feel that we have formed a great friendship with Jenny and Cathy and hopefully this is something that they would like to do again in the future. They did briefly talk to us about some more workshop events and ideas they have for the future, one being in Hull and another Cathy was on about a running an event based on 'A Shop of Dreams'. So fingers crossed!
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