October 1 - Matchbox Self-Portrait

For this seven day project, we basically tried to fit our lives into matchboxes. We were to include as many things as possible that described us, our hobbies, things we like etc, but without including photos of ourselves. Visually, I don't think mine is that effective, but I liked the concept of it.

These are the things I included:

Mini wire bike - because I cycle everywhere. Or at least I used to before college! (It's about 6cm tall).

A ribbon from my suitcase, because I love choir, and I love going on tour.

When I went to London on my birthday when I was 6, a drunk man on the tube gave me a box of Just Brazils. I don't like brazil nuts, but I kept the tin and this little bit of paper which was in the tin.

I made a teeny tiny book because I like reading.

Backstage pass for the Royal Albert Hall...I think. Might have been somewhere else :s

A mini version of the programme from my first choir concert.

Cake. Katie likes cake.

The ticket from when Jack took me ice-skating in London for an anniversary/valentine's day. Most romantic day ever.

My first plane ticket. Because most people spend less than 23 hours on a plane for their first flight.

An artist pass for the Royal Albert Hall. First time singing there.

A penny, because at the time I had no money!

Needle and thread because I like making things.

Crane obsession...

I scanned all the tickets and made them smaller because I didn't want to damage them by folding them too much. Also included a few buttons.


The first day with this matchbox was spent producing drawings of the box and the things in it. For the first one, I drew it without taking my pencil off the page, and I guess it went okay, but it's not fantastic! Oh and my scanner didn't like it.

This version is just drawn with sharpies. I have learnt that red sharpies and orange sharpies are almost the same colour. Humph.

This is drawn with a 9B graphite pencil, I'm rather pleased with it, but it's not exactly inspirational. I think foundation is less about producing an accurate representation of an object/s, but more about doing something interesting or creative etc.

(But I haven't taken a photo yet so you can't see it anyway. Should appear the same time as the naked man.)


We were then told that the idea of this project was to explore as many different techniques and media as possible, so the next thing I did was sew the first line drawing onto fabric. I then made a sewn picture of my wire bike. I was happy to discover something called 'dissolvable film', which you can draw onto, then sew over and it dissolves in water. Would be lovely to have known about it before I'd used ordinary paper..