London 2012

Wow, super busy week (more about that later) but for now I just wanted to share a recent project... 

I was recently commissioned to work up initial ideas for a public art project to celebrate the Olympic cycle road race in the Surrey Hills. The idea was to create representations of the flora and fauna of this AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) directly onto the road surface, to be seen worldwide via television viewed from cameras mounted on support vehicles and helicopters following the cyclists. The proposal also included workshops with local schools creating landscape art in their playgrounds.

A range of partners were involved in this commission including:

LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games)

Surrey Arts

The National Trust

Natural England

Surrey Hills AONB Board and

Friends of Box Hill

Eventually the decision was made by the land owners not to pursue this project, but I had such fun working on it that I wanted to show it here.

My initial idea included the Marbled White butterfly, which I chose because of its highly graphic and distinctive patterning which would lend itself well to being developed into stencils and viewed and recognised from a large distance. The stencils would have needed to be very large scale and therefore created as a laser cut jigsaw, but for this initial rough experiment I hand cut the stencil and sprayed it with a semi-permanent line marking paint.

Alas it was not to be, but it's really great to be able to show the idea here. As for this (manic) week... I am currently creating a range of packaging for a new beauty brand, and a GIANT new commission for Harvey Nichols - I'm designing their September windows in Knightsbridge for London Fashion Week. It is an ENORMOUS job but I am loving every minute so far and can't wait to show you the plans.

Have a great week and I'll be back next week with some sketchbook work from my recent drawing trip to the Orkney Islands. x