Paris

At the start of this month I joined the college trip to Paris. I concentrated on my small watercolour set. Here are a few of the results.


Becka couldn't resist playing games with the ancient stone monkeys in the Louvre. Here she and Josef are, demonstrating their full respect for the exhibits.

Wine Labels & Calligraphy

I give you my wine label find of the year so far.

I enjoy the contents, but the label is very important in swaying me to spend my pounds on a bottle. This one was brought by a guest, but I certainly would have headed straight for it in a shop. Many of the dark lines in the design are gold on the label; and pomegranates are one of my favourite devices. Here's the back.
Joe Staples showed me the work of the calligrapher and wine label artist Jordan Jelev at this site.

... which leads on to Niels Shoe Meulman's work under the title of Calligraffiti, much of which is collected in a desirable book. Both of these artists mix the density of European scripts with the flair of Islamic calligraphy with a poise that I envy.

Cats

Living with a cat for the first time is a distracting experience. His name is Mopsy. He reminds me of Edward Lear's set of pictures of his cat Foss in heraldic poses.

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.

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.

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.