Saturday 29 January 2011

Hectic times

A week of extreme busyness.

Today was my final day at Solent before going to study on the continent... and what a day!

I cleared the printroom of all my bits and pieces (the Pile Of Todd), because when I come back the department will have moved to another building. Before that I rushed to print a set of lino-cuts of ironwork patterns. I finished them last night at my parents' house, keeping the lino warm with their electrical-dining-room-hot-plate thing.

Other parts of the day: photography; photoshop; administration; Salvatore Rubbino's entertaining lecture; cycling back and forth; buying a large box...

but the best part was John Norris Wood's drawing session. He is our newly-appointed honorary professor of illustration. Yesterday he gave his inaugural lecture (highly comical for a number of reasons) on 20th Century British illustrators, starting from Edward Bawden.

Today he had arranged for a number of birds of prey to be brought to the drawing studio: a kestrel, a harris hawk, a Bengal eagle owl, a barn owl, two gyrfalcons and a great horned owl. We haven't had nature-drawing of this kind before and the atmosphere was magical. As Josef said, it really felt like being at art school.

We ended up going for sushi before I collapsed at home and failed to start packing for my trip.

Thursday 13 January 2011

Dear Estates


I found this today, on the ground outside the faculty of media, arts and society.

A notice of disposal by Estates is like the "black spot" of university administration.

Italian Ink


My Italian course has restarted and we're getting into grammar at last. Here is the daunting forest of prepositions.

Monday 10 January 2011

What's My Name?


I've been at sea since the start of the year. No, not literally. I'm not sure what illustration is or what I'm doing; and I have an essay and presentation to work on.

So I'm reminding myself of who I am. I drew this a few years ago.