Tuesday 17 November 2009

Teacup on Thomas Street part 2

After a week or so of confusion and neglect Nia and I finally returned to Teacup to finish off the window display. This time we were joined by Arron and Kat which was a big help as they did a really good job of the window above the door (and Nia helped also, I was the only one that didn't..but I am injured around the rib area so I can't reach very much). Anyway this time John wanted us to paint the logo above the door and change some of the dots into teacups, teabags etc. so I concentrated on that. We also collectively decided to put the snowy looking section at the bottom and added a few Christmas-sy looking gingerbread men to the dots to make it look more fun.

Here are some more low quality phone pictures - go to Nia's blog for better ones!


Thursday 5 November 2009

Teacup on Thomas Street

Nia and I were asked by John Walsh to do some window work for Teacup on Thomas Street (previously known as Cup). He wanted us to create a window display that would show off the new logo and would be appropriate for the winter/Christmas season. I was really excited when he told us what he wanted us to do (the promise of free tea and cake really swayed it for me) and we got to work trying to think of some interesting ideas. This was actually a lot harder than I expected it to be, it was really difficult to remember ANYTHING to do with Christmas that wasn't really tacky.

We thought of a few ideas: gingerbread men, snowflake baubles, snow/polka dots, Christmas jumpers and John took the ideas to Teacup to consult with them.

The final design is going to be one that changes over the next few weeks but begins with the polka dots, a pattern that features heavily in the decoration of Teacup on Thomas Street already. SO Nia and I began working on the window today. We had to paint the logo in iridescent white paint which proved to be quite a challenge as it went on quite thin and streaky. After a few coats it looked a lot better but I still think it needs a bit of extra work to make it look neat and tidy.



After battling with the paint for a few hours we stopped for some AMAZING cake and a little rest and then began work on the polka dots. This was another challenge as the window is pretty big and we had to make a grid out of masking tape - a task that involved a lot of terrifying ladder work and A LOT of masking tape (a whole roll in fact). John wanted the dots to be quite loose and imperfect so we weren't too precious over the size and shape but we wanted to make sure that the grid worked well enough. It started to look really nice until condensation reared it's ugly head and made the bottom 4 rows of dots disintegrate and run down the window. At first we thought it looked pretty good, it almost fitted into the snow theme but then as they continued to disappear we weren't so pleased.





I'm itching to get back to the window now (after I've had a break from it, it was making me feel a bit crazy) and really clean up the text and the messed up dots. I think the window has the potential to look really lovely and wintery but we definitely need to go back and make some improvements. I'm really excited about it though and I think this is a really interesting project, quite a challenge for me as I'm so used to my sketchbooks and this window is quite clearly considerably bigger. John also mentioned the possibility of some work for the menu which would be an absolute treat to do!