My final project was firstly initiated through a key reading
from my Research and Practice 2 writing, “A History of Everyday Things in
England” by Marjorie and C.H.B Quennell. These are four volumes of books from
1918 to 1934 which each illustrate and comment upon the social histories of England
including the environments, artefacts and everyday lives of people from
different eras for children’s education.
This key reading led me into the idea of exploring British
culture and illustrating ‘everyday British things’ in the 21st
century, which directed me to look into British culture existing outside of
Britain and how Englishness has adapted itself in the sunny location of
Benidorm in Spain. I chose to explore Benidorm as a terrain for my project as
it is well-known for being an attractive holiday destination for British people
to visit without feeling too alienated from their own familiarities and
culture. In response to my research, I created a publication which features photographs
and brightly coloured illustrations drawn in a faux-naïve style to reflect the personality
of Benidorm and it’s general attitude.
My final project was firstly initiated through a key reading
from my dissertation, “A History of Everyday Things in England” by Marjorie and
C.H.B Quennell. These are four volumes of books from 1918 to 1934 which each
illustrate and comment upon the social histories of England including the
environments, artefacts and everyday lives of people from different eras for
children’s education.
This key reading led me into the idea of exploring British
culture and illustrating ‘everyday British things’ in the 21st
century, which directed me to look into British culture existing outside of
Britain and how Englishness has adapted itself in the sunny location of
Benidorm in Spain. I chose to explore Benidorm as a terrain for my project as
it is well-known for being an attractive holiday destination for British people
to visit without feeling too alienated from their own familiarities and
culture.
I travelled to Benidorm for 4 days in June to collect
research and visuals to initiate a starting point for my project. I had taken
four 35mm disposable cameras with me and I used one camera for each day. Using
the film cameras granted me with the unmistakable lack of control alongside
achieving photographs which felt dated and appropriate for the subject of
holidays and travelling abroad. Together with the photographs, I used drawing
as a tool to translate the ‘everyday British things’ I had discovered in Spain.
Illustration allows me to apply humour and absurdity by
exaggerating the truth. As I draw in the style of faux-naïve, the childlike use
of typography suggests to the reader a level of low-intelligence, as the handwriting
is crude and unsophisticated, which has a relationship with the environment it
is talking about. The use of bright colours in the illustrations reflect the
personality of the sunny environment as the streets are covered with bright
artefacts and signage and vividly dressed people.
The book begins with illustrations relating to travelling and
documents used while travelling, such as the passport and boarding pass. I made the passport and boarding pass
to be physical, tangible things which live outside of the book as they are
physical objects we would carry about while being at the airport because we
constantly need them again once we’ve put them back into our bags, I wanted to
play on this idea of identity and travelling and I felt that creating a
physical British passport could explore this question.
The stamps
inside of the passport are in relation to the bakery in Benidorm, which is
named “Benidorm’s Answer to Gregg’s”. Throughout this project I am
investigating what is familiar to the British public and exaggerating it using
illustration as a means to do this. Usually we can acquire stamps in our
passports from the places we travel to – the Gregg’s stamps play with the idea
of travelling over 1000 miles to a different country for cruisine which
resembles an English bakery chain.
There is a British gazette I have taken articles and
advertisements from. The gazette, named “Benidorm One: Formerly the British
Gazette” is published for British people living or visiting Benidorm, so there
are articles and advertisements aimed to them. I have taken out texts which
support photographs and issues I found humorous and controversial. While
researching into the subject of British people living in Spain, I found a conversation
between two British “ex-pats” about voting in the referendum, where one claims
to have voted for Brexit despite living in Spain for a number of years.
Strangely he states that the UK has no control of its borders and that is why
he voted for Brexit, yet he has no intention of returning to the UK as he is
quite happy to be living in Spain. There is the inevitable issue of Brexit
throughout the subject of British residents in Spain and highlighting the
hypocrisy by illustrating their conversations and remarks upon the subject.
The objects
we acquire from travelling and in relation to the subject are usually physical
items, such as passports, travel brochures, flight safety information, tickets,
postcards, newspapers, magazines… so creating a physical publication of my research
and drawings seemed most appropriate as opposed to an online presence of images
and text. Also by creating a publication it has allowed me to form a loose
narrative responding to my initial question and terrain.
The project
has been titled as “English Influx”, as the terrain has been exploring the
question of British culture outside of Britain, particularly focusing on the
Englishness as I am an English person and it is the culture and identity I
relate to.
Here are the selection of illustrations I will be putting into my final piece of work. The publication will be a loose narrative reflecting my journey to Benidorm in June, the objects illustrated are from real life and have been drawn with a faux-naive style to imitate the personality and strange charm of Benidorm. The unsophisticated and crude use of handwritten typography suggests to the reader a level of low-intelligence which has a relationship with the environment it is talking about.
Starting to place my research into the format of a publication which is quite difficult and challenging for me as I have a lot of research and I am unsure of how to start. Through talking in a group seminar, I realised what I needed to do was to start placing my findings as a book/publication which will allow me to group research and hopefully ignite my thought process. I must admit that making the draft publication did really help and I have been feeling anxious of time as there isn’t a lot of it left! I am also looking to see whether it would be stronger to use full colour photographs or to use a duo tone as my illustrations will be bright and colourful, so I need to experiment with that to see what be a stronger outcome.
There is the inevitable issue of Brexit throughout the subject of British residents and even holidaymakers in Europe. As I am focusing on Spain, I researched into British “ex-pats” that reside in different areas of Spain. There is quite a fair amount of hypocrisy from the people I had found through video interviews online which are remarkable.
One resident who is English but resides in Spain admitted to voting for Brexit, which is bizarre as he lives in another European country. He states that his reason for voting for Brexit is that the UK has no control of its borders. As my research is filtering British culture in Benidorm, I wanted to include the opinions of British residents in Spain using illustration to draw their conversations in a naive and unsophisticated style to reflect the personality of the people.
This video from the Guardian talks to British “ex-pats”, there are quotes I drew from this video and will be placing into my publication to sit next to the findings of British culture found in Benidorm.
The Benidorm Gazette is a fantastic little find from one night in Benidorm at an Indian restaurant. I seen it on the table and asked the waiter if it was okay to take it, he said yes of course it’s a free newspaper. I immediately thought this could be a great source for visuals and information as it is made for British tourists and residents in Benidorm, Spain. There are some amazing advertisements inside of here, such as the Trotters International Trading Bar review. The article about the “speed demons” caught my immediate attention as it’s an issue that would only exist in Benidorm, there seems to be a fashion for renting mobility scooters there and it’s got to the point where they are now becoming a menace which is so bizarrely humorous.
Creating a physical passport and boarding pass which will live with the publication and can fit inside. I wanted to play with the idea of identity and the objects we carry with us while we are travelling. I will be putting the stamps I made into the passport.
Throughout this project, I am investigating what is familiar to the British public and exaggerating it using illustration as a means to do this. Usually we can acquire stamps in our passports from the places we travel to, the stamp visually shows the locations the bearer has travelled to and each stamp will have their own designs.
The idea of creating stamps in response to the “Benidorm’s Answer to Gregg’s” sarcastically comments upon the effort of travelling 1000 miles from the UK to a different country, and instead of enjoying the local foods from the area, visit an English bakery which resembles (and is damn proud of it) an English bakery chain.
My initial idea was to create my own stamps using a carving technique. I have created lino-cuts previously and thought that there would be a good outcome from this as it isn’t a new skill, however due to wanting the stamps to be so small and detailed this became a task. In the end, I decided that it would be more beneficial and generate a stronger outcome if I draw out my design digitally and send them to a stamp manufacture to achieve the best results.This is the outcome from carving my own stamps. I understand that more practice and patience is needed in order to progress at this skill, however I felt that I did not have the time to do this as I was still deeply in the development stage of my project and I could not spend too long focusing on one aspect of my project when other areas needed to be developed, experimented and finalised. Choosing to digitally design my stamps and to be manufactured through a factory enabled me with stronger outcomes and rewarded me with time to use on other areas of my project.This is how the stamps looked after inked and pressed onto paper. I do quite like the rough and textured nature of them however it is not as detailed as I would like them to be.Initial stamp drawings of “Benidorm’s Answer To Gregg’s” stamp concept. This stamp drawing is for the steak bake, relating to an item from the bakery chain and is also mentioned in a trip advisor review from a customer who visited the Benidorm Gregg’s, stating that they had a steak bake.
This is the second version of the steak bake design, which brings in elements from the previous design such as the year and the pasty. I felt that adding the bite into the steak bake added humour and playfulness into the drawing.
In addition to the steak bake stamp, I designed a cheese and onion bake stamp which follows on the round design and drawing in the shape of the pasty which is featured at the centre.
These stamps will be created through a third party, as I did attempt to create my own stamps using a similar method to lino-cutting which become too time consuming and the result was not what I was after which was for a clean and intricate design. Had I created the stamps myself through carving them, I would not have achieved the intricate detail I got through drawing them digitally and sending them to a company to produce. This also saved rewarded me with saved time which I put into different areas of my project.
These are the results from sending over my digital drawings. I’m very happy with the outcome and they came out better than I imagined, I’m very pleased that I decided to go forward with using a stamp factory to produce them. The next stage of this project is now to design and create a passport for the stamps to live inside, I am yet unsure if the passport will be a physical artefact on it’s own or if it will be a flat illustration inside of the book. I do like the idea of creating a physical passport to live outside of the publication so I will try to create this in the next few weeks.
I wanted to create postcards as these are well-known artefact which I’m not sure how often people send postcards anymore they do seem redundant now that other methods of sending photos to loved ones back home, as we can send photos through WhatsApp or iMessage etc. However, they are lovely things to collect on our travels. I bought a few postcards from a shop on the beach front, I was hoping to create my own postcards which feature images from the shops such as the “I love Benidorm” t-shirt and bottles of suncream. I wasn’t liking how they were turning out and I sort of hit a wall with this idea which is a shame because I would have really liked to have continued with this. Perhaps I can create the postcards for the Exhibition after the deadline and they can be a part of the show.
Below are scans of the postcards I bought from the shop in Benidorm.
Beniconnect Travel Agency was the airport transfer we used to get us from Alicante airport to Benidorm. The drive to Benidorm from Alicante is around a 40 minute drive. I wanted to incorporate the confirmation of our pickup letter as it’s something real which has been illustrated to imitate it, I want to show the audience the essence of travelling and include the documents used from travelling.
Scans from sketchbook – exploring illustrative ideas of themes such as food, mobility scooters and appearance (how people change their appearance while abroad like getting tattoos and hair braids, plus skin colour changing to either tanned or burned.) Using a sketchbook helps me to visualise a style for my work and explore the ways I can draw.
I travelled to Benidorm for four days from 11th to 15th June to collect research and visuals to initiate a starting point for my project and to experience the environment at first hand. I had taken four 35mm disposable camera with me, and I used one camera for everyday that I was there, attempting to filter the British culture out from Benidorm using photography. The photographs from my journey will be uploaded onto this blog post, I have been trying to look for themes from my photographs to try and create categories and themes to start my thinking process off. I have started to notice how food is a big influence with culture as it naturally would be, I am interested into looking at English food in Spain as I noticed while I was in Benidorm how restaurants and cafes attract English, and British, customers through enticing them in with food they are familiar with from home.
English Influx 