SIRF Carnival Olympic themed sketches

I swim like an artistic brick but have, strangely, been given the theme of 'in the water' for this years Olympic themed costume fest. I've attempted to take the sport out of sport as much as possible. Here is my selection of unsportsmanlike sketches, I'm hoping that adding goggles and swimming hats to each costume will save me.... I'm also going to be making a big structure all about synchronised swimming...

these people are swimming so much like fish that they have turned into actual fish - except one who's turned into a butterfly and is obviously doing Butterfly stroke- god, I love sport.

 sailing boats drifting along in the Stockton sunshine....

this is a canoe - its really a rather slim and stylised whale but the two 'canoeists' are paddling it anyway.

A synchronised swimmer wears a backpack of creepy synchronised doll swimmers, who dance playfully in a Busby Berkley style around an art deco (well hopefully) styled glitzy pool. (Note the big white toothy smile - which is compulsory)

Divers - a swallow dive (see what I did there to avoid actual swimming...) and a frog man (ditto)

Burnett & Catt - we've been busy, carnival 2009

We make costumes and floats for the Parade but we're also in it. Duncan will be 'Miss' Milky Way this year - this is him testing out the chopper / wide brimmed flying saucer hat configuration.If you look through the telescope you can see the Earth bobbing around on a bit of wire - just like the real thing...




I'll be navigating the Sun costume through the parade. With its backpack it's about 10 ft tall & has a good 'wingspan' with its cloak rods outstretched so I'm hoping for low winds.

The moon costume is also rodded in the cloak, originally the wearer was going to carry the large moon on a stick seen in an earlier post but it's too difficult to negotiate the cloak rods and the pole so now she'll have a bearer to carry it in front of her.
The 'smash' alien will sit in the moon balloon float, I've given him a potato masher, think the other claw needs a fork and a potato.

Miss Milky Ways dress had to be more minimal cos 'she' has to navigate down the parade route on the telescope bike. We still went to town on the embroidery though.


First and second incarnations of milky ways head dress. We preferred the space ship with the sparkly alien look to the crusty comet above it.

Burnett & Catt - Carnival continued....with a special preview of Miss Milky Ways 'chopper' in progress

More images from the workshop - 3 weeks to the carnival. We're especially excited about ''Miss Milky Way's" telescopic pushbike in progress - think we're going to have to rethink her crinoline though and maybe go for some diamante cycling shorts.

Burnett & Catt Floats - Moon Balloon & Silly Planets in progress

Workshop images of the latest work on the carnival. We've been burning the midnight oil making bizarre asteroids and planets for the 'big bang' float and have made a start on the moon balloon float that will transport the 'moon hare' around the parade circuit. The strange dalek looking structures on the second set of pictures are the moon balloons telescopic eyes (one for each side).

Burnett and Catt - workshop images, floats in progress

work in progress for the Carnival Parade.

Burnett & Catt Lord Mayors Carnival Designs Bradford 2009

Its Bradford Lord Mayors Carnival on June 20th. This year the theme is Astronomy /space to coincide with International year of Astronomy. Here are our initial drawings for this years floats and costumes. The bottom graphic will be the carnival logo.

Burnett & Catt - Bradford Lord Mayors Parade

Bradford Lord Mayors carnival parade

music costume

music float

Tea & cakes float

Madame Flotsam recycled costume

Tea Djinn & float

The Love, Dance, Art, Friendship Float

Some of our costumes.

The Tea Djinn

Jackie from Q20 Theatre in the paintbrush gown

We've (Burnett & Catt) made floats and costumes for the Bradford Lord Mayors Parade for the last 3 years. This years parade was in June - photos by fantastic Bradford based photographer Tim Smith, please see his website at the link below - there's some really stunning work there.

http://www.timsmithphotos.com/site.html

Burnett & Catt recycled costume commission - designs

We've been commissioned to design a new costume made of recycled materials to help promote recycling. This is the initial design sheet. Its based on a late Baroque Madame Pompadour/ Marie-Antoinette style character with a powdered wig created from old knitwear. The main part of the gown to be created from used carriers and foil packaging, embroidered and woven onto
a fabric backing. The shape of the dress is based loosely on tree roots - carrier bags wrapped around a padded framework of spiralling curls. The bodice can be heavily stitched and patterned. The wings to be attached to fibre rods, we're imagining a loose and delicate filigree of stitched plastics. The gown to be sleeveless but finished with a set of heavily embellished bands at the forearm and a sash of flowers created from plastics (bottle bottoms/ carriers etc). A pair of fans will finish the outfit and enable the actor to create shape and character. As far as possible we will will limit the palette, we're imagining white with greens and maybe a touch of purple / blue, but this really depends on what materials we find. There is also scope to create little creatures, birds/ butterflies etc, and hide them within the wig and folds of the dress to add interest. We'd aim to make the costume look sumptous and baroque, with closer inspection revealing the nature of the materials used to create it.