FMP Project Research

Friday 30 April 2010

Thursday 15 April 2010

Plot summary

At the start of the book, it is spring time, the weather is fine, and good-natured Mole loses patience with his spring cleaning and dares to leave his underground home, heading up to take in the air. He ends up at the river, which he has never seen before. Here he meets Ratty (a water rat), who spends all his days in and around the river. Rat takes Mole for a ride in his rowing boat. They get along well and the two of them spend many more days on the river, with Rat teaching Mole the ways of the river.
Some time later, one summer day, Rat and Mole find themselves near Toad Hall and pay a visit to Toad. Toad is rich, jovial and friendly, but conceited, and tends to become obsessed about things, only to dismiss them later. Having given up boating, Toad's current craze is his horse-drawn caravan. In fact, he is about to go on a trip, and persuades the reluctant Rat and willing Mole to join him. A few days later, a passing motor car scares their horse, causing the caravan to crash. This marks the end of Toad's craze for caravan travel, to be replaced with an obsession for motor cars.
Mole wants to meet Badger, who lives in the Wild Wood, but Rat knows that Badger does not appreciate visits, and so refuses to take him, suggesting that if Mole will wait, Badger himself will pay a visit. Nevertheless, on a winter's day, Mole goes to the Wild Wood to explore, hoping to meet Badger. He gets lost in the woods, succumbs to fright and panic and hides among the roots of a sheltering tree. Rat goes looking for Mole, and finds him, but it starts to snow and even Rat no longer knows the way home. By chance they arrive at Badger's home. Badger welcomes Rat and Mole to his large and very cosy home, and gives them food and dry clothes. Badger learns from Rat and Mole that Toad has crashed six cars and has been hospitalised three times, and has had to spend a fortune on fines. Though nothing can be done at the moment (it being winter), they decide that once spring arrives they should do something to protect Toad from himself, since they are, after all, his friends.
With the arrival of spring, Badger visits Mole and Rat to do something about Toad's self-destructive obsession. The three of them go to visit Toad, and Badger tries talking him out of his behaviour, to no avail. They decide to put Toad under house arrest, with themselves as the guards, until Toad changes his mind. Feigning illness, Toad manages to escape and steals a car. He is caught and sent to prison on a twenty-year sentence. No longer needing to guard the now-absent Toad, Rat visits his old friend Otter and finds out that Otter's son is missing. Rat and Mole set out to find him. They receive help from the god Pan who leads them to the location of the missing child. Pan removes their memories of this meeting "lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure".
In prison, Toad gains the sympathy of the jailer's daughter, who helps him to escape. This involves disguising Toad as a washerwoman. Having escaped, Toad is without possessions and pursued by the police, but he shakes off his pursuers with the help of the driver of a steam train. Still disguised as a washerwoman, Toad comes across a horse-drawn boat. Toad lies about being a capable washerwoman to the owner of the boat, who offers him a lift in exchange for his laundry services. Toad, however, proves to be incapable at washing clothes, and he gets into a fight with the boat owner, steals her horse, and sells it to a gypsy. Hoping for a ride home, he flags down a passing car, which happens to be one he stole earlier. However, the owners don't recognise him in his disguise, and give him a lift. Toad asks if he can drive, and is allowed to, which of course quickly leads to an accident. He flees, and by chance arrives at Rat's house.
Toad hears from Rat that Toad Hall has been taken over by weasels, stoats and ferrets from the Wild Wood, despite attempts to protect and recover it by Mole and Badger. Although upset at the loss of his house, Toad realises what good friends he has, and how badly he has behaved. Badger, Rat, Mole and Toad enter Toad Hall via a secret entrance and drive away the intruders. Toad makes up for his earlier wrongdoings by seeking out those he wronged and compensating them. The four friends live out their lives happily ever after.

Stamp Collectors

Stamp collecting seems to be the sole concern, of the older gentleman and small children, it seems to be used as a way to create a common interest between family members of differant generations, grandfathers to grandchildren, collections would most likely kept as hier looms, depending on the passion shown by the collector for his hobby. Personaly speaking if my Granddad had been a massive stamp collector, I would cherish his collection the way he did, in respect of his memory. Thankfully my Grandad was a keen drinker so I get to "pay my respect" to the old goat every time I have a pint. I would think it is very rare for a child to pick up stamp collecting without the influence of some parental figure.
So how can this relationship between collectors be exploited to add value to my designs. the connection of the stamp image to an outside media is a good device, for example the Alice in Wonderland stamps ive shown in a earlier post, could be part of a collection and after being veiwed by the child the parental collector could then read the book to the child, or watch the film with them, so from a stamp the grandparent has traversed the generation gap and spent some quality time with his grandchild, its like a Werthers Original ad in real life.
my designs cant directly use these links without infringing on copyrights but i can use elements of other stories to add suggestion
What ive been interested in, is a modern re-working of The wind in the Willows, the classic children's book where animals are humanized, they wear clothes, drive cars , etc., the original story is set just before the first world war (aprox). If I now create a series of stamps that uses the wild life of Britain as well as the iconic professions or character stereotype we have in this country, I would answer the brief in regards of celebrating Bio diversity, but also create something which would pick up interest from fans of the original book.

Skate Board Factory Film

I always used to watch the kids shows that showed how things where made and packaged, every week they had large factories producing all manner of goods with commentary by the actress who played Nurse Gladis in open all hours, (strange how i remember that). any way i found this film on skateboard being made, and although it show that the graphics are applied via transfer it's its not extremely helpful, hypnotizing to watch though.

Tuesday 13 April 2010

Helmut the Hotdog Man

Strangeco
Other Western Helmut the Hot Dog Man.

Will Sweeney joins AMOS with his magnum opus Tales from the Greenfuzz - a comic detailing the travails of various food-based homunculi that dwell within the artist's distorted psychedelic universe. Helmut the Hot Dog Man is the first vinyl figure from the series-the leader of a villainous gang of tommy gun-toting kebabs. Based on the comic book, TALES FROM THE GREENFUZZ by William Sweeney.

This figure is 7" tall and made from hard vinyl. Good paint job, another excellent and delicious piece from by William Sweeney

The Scrawl Collectives Mr Jargo

Mr Jago
Mr Jago, (plain Mr to his freinds) is one of the Scrawl Collective founder members and as such is central to the way the agency developed in it's infancy. Not a graffiti artist as such he took the influence of graffiti and ran with it in a completely different direction to everyone else at the time.

Growing up in a small village offered little opportunity for bombing the streets and this led him to draw furiously in countless sketchbooks never knowing at the time where all this activity might lead him. After meeting Will and Steff while studying graphic design in Bristol his path seemed clear and he was soon working regularly for Bristol's ever burgeoning recording and club promoting entrepreneurs. He can truly be described along with Will Barras and Steff as a pioneer of the doodle school that seems to be everywhere these days and is now like graffiti before it an accepted part of our wider visual language. He is as a result, and deservedly so, world famous among his contemporaries in the urban art world and he has earned the right to be talked about in the same breath as some of his own heroes. Most recently he has collaborated on a toy with Addict Clothing and as well as being a regular in their artists t-shirt series he has designed the camo pattern for their latest fabric.