Belle Vue

Belle Vue :

Belle Vue was a fairground based in Manchester in the 1920’s where people from the city would come and see the exotic animals.  At that time, it was a luxury and people would revel in its activities and sites. It was well known that it sold the most beer  in the UK than anywhere else around that time. The type of people that visited Bella Vue were often upper class that dressed formally for their visit. Although Belle Vue had a range of exotic animals, it was renowned for keeping them under poor conditions and animals were documented to not survive for long which may have decreased its popularity. I found this information hard to listen to in the lecture as it sounded like the animals were almost treated as disposable toys and solely an object for entertainment. I find the leaflets for Belle Vue very creative and it appeared that they advertised the fairground like it was an exotic rainforest.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach

I enjoyed the trip to Blackpool, however, I found that seeing the amusement park when it is not open to the public was a somewhat eerie experience.

Costume room for ice-skating performances:

I found the costume room particularly inspiring. The room exploded with colour and creative fantasy-like costumes and I feel that this aspect will significantly inspire my creative process. The feathered headdresses that dangled from the sealing were visually pleasing as they were incredibly free-flowing and vibrant. It was almost as if the costumes had a life of their own with dominant outline structured designs to the clothing. I would like to demonstrate in my work how I can create vibrancy and originality from the costume room and develop it in a simplistic way of using colour, movement and shape.

 

Costume workshop:

When looking at the costume workshop it made me think of how much hard work and dedication is involved in making such beautiful and elegant headdresses. I would like to adopt some of the same techniques that I witnessed in the costume workshop area. Pantomime costume, in general, does not interest me greatly however,  there are a number of areas I could utilize and develop in my own work such as the expressive use of colour and perhaps using colour as a type of performance.

Rollercoaster’s :

The different shapes and forms of the rollercoaster’s at Blackpool was of fascination to me. I like the fact that it looks like the construction is built upon layers. I have tried to develop this through my drawing of the different lines that the rollercoaster’s create. I wanted my drawings to appear as if they had motion integrated within them so when drawing I made the lines very vigorous.

At the end of the trip we were given an opportunity to go ice skating and it made me think of the  lines in the ice that are carved by the ice skates and how ice skating has a flying like quality, almost similar to riding on a rollercoaster. Ice skating could be another form of drawing as the ice represents a blank canvas and the blades almost mirror a drawing tool. The different curves and swirls that are indented into the ice are formed with the tool. I think that the ice skating rink and the rollercoaster park share similar features as both ice skating and rollercoaster’s  share an element of danger, excitement and adrenaline release.