Bhoot

Bhoot is an authorial, biographical narrative that I am currently in the process of illustrating, with the aim to create a finished graphic novel. Bhoot is based on cultural folklore, passed down to me by my Mother and is based on my Grandfather, who I never met.

Angel of Mons

This project was a commission, in which I was asked to create a poster to accompany a piece of music, commemorating the anniversary of the ‘Angel of Mons’. In the early weeks of the Great War, a winged angel appearing to British Expeditionary troops above the battlefield, warning them to retreat.

Mock-ups 

The idea behind the mock-ups (above) is to capture the energy of the angel, representing this, instead of the physical form. 

Again, I have chosen to represent the angel metaphysically. A bursting ray of light shinning down on a soldier, quickly praying before he joins his comrades in the battlefield. 

The mock-up above takes a more literal approach. The sky is broken, by the descending angel, revealing outer space. The path coming down from the sky symbolised the road the soldiers retreated on. Researching the 'Angel of Mons', the images of the soldiers retreating stood out to me.  

The design above was chosen by the client to be finalised. In this design I choose to have an outline of the angel, not incorporating any features, as I thought this was a good balance between giving some information away but not too much. 

                                     

Above are all the text layouts I experimented with before I decided on the best placement. 

I thought that having the text in the silhouette of the head, subtracted too much from the background, and the text looked like it was floating too much, and the text in the background did not stand out enough. 

Final Poster

Estrangement

In a realistic world there are the beautiful and equally there is the ugly, both coexisting with each other, to define and appreciate the opposed. But in the strange world of Acacia, only beautiful creatures inhabit it, and everything always remains perfectly beautiful. In order to sustain this there are regulators, working out of sight from the civilians.

This silent zine tells the story of an estranged girl. 

Spiritual Chickens

The task in this project was to illustrate this sinister text. I created this dark and surreal painting, using acrylic, to compliment the atmosphere . 

Witch

These two paintings were a response to an article based on The Pendle Witch Trials. I approached these paintings with the idea to portray the women as they were accused. Visually communicating the crimes they were accused of by adding the mystical elements to the paintings, rather than portraying them as victims of persecution. 

Moon Bird

Moon Bird is a wordless narrative about an alluring hybrid landing on the moon to meet the creature that guards it. 

The Trapped Crow

The Trapped Crow is a wordless narrative, incorporating love and curse .  I created this double page spread to submit to Tiny Pencil.

1001

1001 is a fairytale story I illustrated, written by the author, Razwan Ul-Haq. The story is written for young readers as they follow the characters on their magical adventure. The characters learn about each others culture and the reader follow them on this journey. 

Fish prints

These images are the result of observational drawings in classroom workshop, which were then taken away to be spontaneously assembled in this form.

Surreal Drawings

I created these surreal drawing, based on the human form, to use as surface design. I hand painted these designs on tote bags and hand-bound books which were sold in The Illustration Shop.

SVD

The book cover and poster for SVD were created in collaboration with Razwan Ul-Haq. I was responsible for creating the imagery, and contributed my thoughts at the concept to creation stage. I also created illustrations to go inside the book.

Website

To view more of art please visit my website:

http://www.sayra.co.uk/