From the artist's mouth - Hazel Fisher.
I am an illustrator, designer and maker. I love to be creative and enjoy working on a range of subjects, from illustrations for greeting cards, creating designs for craft supplies to illustrating my fictional town called Hexley.
I have been working on the creation of Hexley for several years and the town continues to grow! It is inspired by the Victorian and Edwardian eras and science fiction, in my illustrations I like combining things from the past with my imagination to create something new.
Hexley is a Steampunk inspired fictional town set in the late Victorian era, somewhere in the East of England. It is a centre for learning and discovery, full of strange inventions. As the name suggests, Hexley is a hexagonal shaped place, with a central town and 6 outer settlements, each specialising in a different area (Little Hexing - providing the main route in and out of Hexley it is the centre for distribution, information and tourism, Cogcott – the transportation centre, Swinworth –
specialising in zoological research, Hythby – a fishing port and centre for Oceanography, Totfeld – the Climatology Centre, Ryeham – the centre for farming and Botany). The main town is where the majority of the residents live and work, including Edwin Cracknell who spends much of his time
in his steam powered workshop creating birds for his mechanical aviary!
The first Clockwork Bird I illustrated was the blackbird, which I randomly numbered 57. Although I have now illustrated several more clockwork birds there are still plenty more to draw until the set is complete! I particularly like turning birds with a distinctive colour pattern or shape into clockwork birds and am often inspired by the birds visiting my garden.
I find inspiration for my Hexley illustrations from all sorts of things – from old keys and watch parts I have collected to vintage cars or old buildings and architecture (which have inspired some of the patterns in the new sets of stamps).
I have lots more ideas jotted down in my sketchbooks about the town and its inhabitants so I am sure there are many more illustrations of Hexley yet to be drawn!
You can find Hazel's designs here - A5 Clockwork Birds and A5 Hexley Transport.
If you want to see more of Hazel's work then why not visit http://www.hazelfisher.co.uk/
