Merry christmas!

Workshop making clay mice

Thrilled to run a drop-in mouse-making workshop for children last Saturday at Bolton Museum, as part of the opening of their new exhibition, 'Animals and Us'. The exhibition features Leopold the mascot mouse (drawn and designed by me in black and white).

We made over 60 little mice, using self-hardening clay, string, pink cardboard, small hazel twigs, paper and pencils. Clay is great to use with children because it is so malleable.

Leopold the mascot mouse @annaviolet

Illustrated exhibition opens at Bolton Museum

I am delighted to have been involved in an exciting and unusual illustration commission for Bolton Museum, including Leopold the mascot mouse. 

I provided the black and white ink line drawings for the museum’s interactive family exhibition, ‘Animals and Us’. These images were no bigger than A4-size, scanned in at high resolution and then made into vector files. 

I am impressed how Bolton Museum has had these illustrations printed onto foamboard at varying sizes, to link the exhibition together in a very graphic and fresh way. The illustrations provide the actual furniture and the setting for the displays, so the pillars, the cupboards, the fireplace and the stable door are now life-sized. 

Leopold the  mouse is child-sized on the stairway and mouse-sized elsewhere, and guides young visitors around. 

The exhibition opened to the public yesterday and will last about 18 months.

http://www.bolton.gov.uk/website/news/pages/Miniaturemascotstarofnewexhibition.aspx