Royal Mail Mini Stamp Sheet: Royal Shakespeare Company's 50th Anniversary

Royal Mail Mini sheet
"All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players" As You Like It, William Shakespeare
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Hat-trick were asked to design a set of stamps. They were also asked to do a mini sheet and kindly asked me to make a paper sculpture representation of Stratford-On-Avon's four main theatres within a model of the town, which also had to look like a stage set. The challenge for me and designer Gareth Howat, was to get each theatre to sit and work within its perforated frame as a separate vignette, yet still be part of the town/stage set, as a whole. We took several test shots and experimented with different sizes of theatres and props, before eventually settling on the image seen above.
Here's a little film Hat-trick made at John Ross' photography shoot. 

Although they are officially published on the 12th April The Telegraph has featured them online today. 
The commemorative mini stamp sheet can be purchased from Royal Mail Collectibles for £3.96.
The main set were designed with the collaboration of Marion Deuchars (which are also for sale on the 12th April 2011). I think they are fabulous. Marions's website with further work can be seen here.
Royal Mail Anniversary stamps for the Royal Shakespeare Company










 

 

Other stamp sets designed by Hat-trick

Elephant Parade Copenhagen 2011

Paradise Lost

I felt I wanted to say something about the loss of forestation in my design for the Elephant Parade Copenhagen 2011. Not just about the trees and the plants, or indeed the Asian elephants, but about all the other creatures that live by symbiosis there. Because, in my opinion, they have become detached from us, from what we are and what we should be. I want the children who see, touch and yes climb upon my elephant to hopefully think about this force of nature in some small way. So my idea was to show a nighttime side and a daytime side, together with the life therein.
I deliberately chose to decorate the scenes with animals that linked the forests and woodlands of Europe with those of Asia (except the chameleon, although we do have flocks of perroquets in Surrey).
For obvious reasons, I've called the elephant Paradise Lost.


Please click on the pictures to see a high res version.

Nighttime side

Daytime side of elephant

The elephant took about four weekends and a few extra days to complete. I coated this one in several layers of varnish as I wanted to protect as much as possible from being damaged before the auction.

When choosing the colours, I thought turquoise for the day, mauve for the night then added others quite instinctively, before standing back to consider whether or not they worked.

Parrot

Owl

Squirrel, snake, bat, moth and beetle

Dragonfly

Front Moon

Front Sun

Tree frog

Snake tail

I'm currently making a little film about the painting, with a 360 degree view of the elephant. I will post it later.


Here's a link to last year's elephant, Harapan. He raised £21,250 at auction.