April banner designer Kristyna Baczynski passes on the baton, but before she does we wring an interview out of her…
Sophie Angelica Thomas is a Manchester based illustrator and maker. From beautifully crafted paper sculptures to delicately brushed ink illustrations, her work is soaked in charm and skill. Sophie graduated from Goldsmiths with a degree in Fine Art and has since been exhibited internationally from Chorlton to Chicago, and worked on everything from gig posters and animation to sculpture and design.
It’s with great pleasure that I invited her to take on the Culture Vulture banner design for May (and greater pleasure that she said yes).
Hi Sophie, thank you for taking the time to design the beautiful May banner and answer a few questions.
Thanks for having me! To be honest, if I wasn’t answering these questions I would be wasting my morning spying on the neighbours who are in the process of gluing down a fake lawn to replace their perfectly fine real one that disappeared yesterday.
Your work spans a range of disciplines and materials, what are your favourites and why do you return to them?
Ooh I’m terrible at favourites questions. I think when I get an idea in my head, it’s always been a natural thing for me to approach it in different media alongside each other. So I’ll do some sketches, some 3D bits, more drawings, more 3D, then look at it again and try and figure out where it should be going. Lately I’ve been working with brush pens. 3D-wise I’ve been using this wax that people use to make anatomical models, which is really nice to use as you don’t have to worry about it drying out, but it attracts fluff like nobody’s business! But, yeah, pen and ink on paper is the best.
Do you keep a sketchbook, and what are your favourite things to draw in it?
I keep a few, which are meant to be for different things: one for notes from things I’m reading, one for quick sketches and one for bigger ink and brush things. But that never really works out and it all ends up in my trusty plain paper Muji notebook. Favourite things to draw at the moment: grumpy/shifty faces and ladies dancing or stretching. Then there’s the regulars: plans for 3D stuff, repeat pattern ideas, and a hell of a lot of hands.
Hands are a recurring theme in your work, what is it about them that keeps you engaged creatively?
My earliest hand drawing memory is maybe age 8, when my pencil drawing of a pair of gnarled old man hands was picked by my headmaster to go on his office wall. It was a proud moment so maybe that stuck with me!
I don’t know, they’re uniquely human and expressive and have so much significance attached to them. And they’re very useful, I find.
Your work has a classic feel to it – do you find your influences hark from a bygone era?
Yeah definitely. Illustration-wise I love Olle Eksell, Dick Bruna’s book cover designs for Zwarte Beertjes, Abram Games, Daphne Padden, Cliff Roberts etc. I’m influenced by heraldry and medieval art too.
Artists Lászlo Mololy-Nagy and Sophie Taeuber-Arp are some of my favourites. They both have multidisciplinary, explorative approaches that have always appealed to me. Something I’m working on at the moment comes in part from my love of Taeuber-Arp’s wooden puppets.
Oh and I love Oskar Fischinger’s abstract animations.
I’m also very influenced by the things I read, some favourites being John Wyndham, HG Wells, Kobo Abe, and Robert Walser to name a very few.
You recently collaborated on a music video animation for Playacting. How did you find the transition to animation?
I really enjoy animation and its something I really want to be better at. I did bits of animation at college but then kind of left it behind. The video for Playacting was super simple and short, I’ll hopefully be doing a longer animation over the summer that might even last a whole song! There’s a magic to hand-drawn animation that you just can’t beat.
Are you working on any new pieces, or is that top secret?
I’m designing some cd packaging for a Playacting EP, making a risograph zine, and planning some wooden ladies. Little bit o’ this, little bit o’ that!
