Cath Donaldson illustration

This is a short video I made for my A level students. We've been making typefaces from all kinds of found materials and I wanted to show them how to use the liquify filter in Photoshop on some of the objects they have collected. I used a feather for this one.

My nightbug pattern was inspired by a visit to the Insect and  butterfly house at London zoo. I hate insects and spiders and I've never been able to go into the bug houses without my eyes closed for much of the time (walking in the middle). My idea was to try and draw some of them, objectifying them as  beautiful delicate specimens (not fast winged predators intent on flying into my hair). I used dip pen and ink for most of the drawings plus a yellow ochre wash mixed with a bit of PVA.  I tried drawing on parcel paper and the pages of an old book too.
I looked too at victorian encyclopaedias, and fell in love with the etchings in the 1851 'Iconographic encyclopaedia of science, literature and Art'.