There’s always a bit of a post-festive lull here at Hooperhart Headquarters; stock has been depleted to the point of non-existence, I don’t have any trade fairs to prep for, and if I’m honest, I use January as an excuse to take things a little easy. It’s a time to contemplate the year ahead and consider how I want to develop and avenues I fancy exploring…to mix things up a bit I’ve signed up for a weekend course using a material which couldn’t be more different to wood, but more on that at a later date!
In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about making more boxed dioramas and developing the storytelling aspect of them in a visual way. I started making them in 2017, initially using domino boxes and wooden cubes:
I’m always on the lookout for interesting boxes which will be suitable for housing little worlds – towards the end of last year I found some with lovely little clasps and lids:
They’ve gradually become more elaborate, and I’ve started using transfers alongside screenprinting and painting as a way to get fine detail and text onto the boxes and their interiors:
So far the boxes have all been fairly small but I’ve recently acquired some larger boxes which I want to use but I’m concerned the little scenes I have in mind might lose their charm the bigger they get…I could certainly fit plenty of detail in though. I’ve even been considering designing some around a character from literature – and I usually steer well clear from actual humans in my work! Sometimes you need to step out of your comfort zone, we’ll see…I’ll continue to mull this one over – first step is to sit down with the sketchbook and put pencil to paper…
Thanks for reading 🙂
HooperHart 