Samantha Bryan

I'm having a little self-doubt.

I'm not sure whether what I'm doing is illustration, whether I am on the right course, or where my work is going. I don't know what I'm going to do after University and it's scaring me.

I thought I was going to come here, study illustration and leave to make children's books but now I am lost.

I've found myself getting into 3D and model-making, so I want to look at some illustrators who work with three dimensions to investigate how my work might exist in similar contexts.

Samantha Bryan

Calls herself a 'designer/maker'. She makes figurines using wire, paperclay, leather and found objects.
Her work has been featured at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, among other brilliant venues, but I have bumped into her dolls inside the Imaginarium in York.

http://samanthabryan.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/WebSlider_Floatation_Device_Samantha_Bryan-2-384x263.jpg

Inspired by Victorian Gadgetry and Invention Samantha Bryan creates suspended, wall mounted and free standing sculptures out of a combination of wire, leather, found objects & collected materials. These unusual sculptures depict everyday life in ‘fairyland’.

By using found objects and mixing mechanical inventions with these fantastical characters, Bryan mimics a Steampunk-esque syle. Her dolls are so delicate and beautiful, but I especially love the little pieces of writing that she posts next to them, describing their inventions and feats. She's a storyteller and is building a bigger and bigger world with every fairy.

http://www.madebyhandonline.com/uploads/cached/uploads/products/images/samantha_bryan_dust_vehicle_madebyhand_1-0x800.jpg

The stitching on the garments is quite hap-hazard, but it suits the idea that these little fairies make them themselves - a make do and mend type of attitude that Samantha Bryan values too. Using old scraps, they're bound to look a little messy.

Their faces can look a little same-y. The consistency of her 'style' could be seen as a little boring or repetitive. I particularly love the little noses - just two nostril holes - so simple! But the eyes could maybe be more interesting, with resin glass irises or eyelids perhaps? They are constantly frozen in the same expression…

I wonder how Samantha Bryan packages her dolls. I've only ever seen them for sale in glass display cabinets or on shelves, does she box them up? I'd like to develop a branding for my dolls similar to MENDL'S from The Grand Budapest Hotel - a classy and simple design that could safely carry the dolls but not look like a scruffy random postal box I've found (guilty).