Trekking About London

I missed last week's session due to being ill, but I was back today and raring to go.

Oh my days I'm tired.

I woke up at eight, out the flat by half eight, on the DLR by twenty to. It's the first time i've used to trains during morning peak time. Apart from getting lost between Tower Gateway and Tower Hill it was pretty all right really. Maybe they stagger the times people start work more than they stagger the times they finish.

We met up at Trafalgar Square and got the brief.

It was basically a scavenger hunt. I'd take a picture of the list, but it's seriously worn out from over use.

Me, and my group of four others (one of which just disapeared) had to:

40. Meet at Trafalgar Square
39. Get someone to photograph you in front of Van Gogh's sunflowers in the National Gallery
-Now this already is problematic because you aren't allowed to take photographs inside the National Gallery. So now we have to play at being spys as well as treasure hunters.
38. Buy a postcard in the shop at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
-This didn't open until twelve, we got there at twenty past 11.
37. Sit and draw for a while in the splendour of St James church
36. Buy a postcard in the shop of the Royal Academy of Arts
35. Pick up a sample piece of paper in Falkiners Fine Papers
-It's at this point if you're following the map that you realise these locations are only extremely loosely numbered properly. 35 is in the north east corner of the map, as opposed to the southwest corner you're in if you're at 36.
34. Walk around the giant modern architectural atrium in the British Museum
33. Ask to see the work of Vaughn Bode in Gosh Comics
-We went into another comic shop and cause we thought we might be able to fiddle this one and he said that it was SO underground that our only chance was on the internet.
32. Inspect the umbrellas at James Smith &Sons umbrella shop
31. Sit on a piece of designer furniture at the Aram store
30. Draw the architecture of the Royal Opera House
29. Draw Snowy from life at the Tintin Shop
-This was quite interesting, as the woman working there showed us the difference between original and updated work. This might not be so useful for graphics, but within illustration I think it would be. Obviously as you draw more you get better at it, and the idea of going back to previous work and re-releasing it after updating it (changing a panel of two '40s cars to two '60s cars) and improving the art really interested me.
28. Have a drink in the Lamb and Flag - Londons oldest pub
-We didn't have time for a drink, but we had a look inside. It's tiny. The writing above the bar was interesting though.
27. Shoot a ten second film inside the London Film School
-All we really saw of this building was a narrow spiralling red staircase, as we wern't really sure how much of it we were allowed to explore. It was pretty dingy.
26. Buy a pencil or pen in the London Graphic Centre flagship store
-I got a application for 15% percent off, this is good as it isn't exactly wallet friendly. None of the places we visuited were really, I think I spent loads today, which is annoying.
25. Draw a pipe in G Smith & Sons Snuff Shop
-Even these guys didn't have a Gandalf pipe, I'm losing hope of ever finding one.
24. Find a new arist you admire in Zwemmer books
-I found a book of photography by Graham Nash. I'm not really one for photography, I think it's good, there are certain instances were a photograph is a thousand times more evocative than a drawing. Like that picture of David Cameron with that yob brandishing a fake gun at him:



If it'd been drawn wouldn't have been as impressive really. But this Nash book seemed to be that interesting sort of slice of life style of photography, rather than landscape photography type stuff, which bores me.
23. Take a paparazzi style exit shot coming out of the Ivy restaurant
22. Make note of two interesting design and illustration books in Magma Books
-I went with "the Street Art Stencil Book", currated by On Studio and "How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul" by Adrian Shaughnessy. I actually bought the Shaughnessy book, as the title was something I've been worrying about. I read the introduction on the tube home, seems interesting so far
21. Inhale deeply and try some of the only British Cheeses in Neals Yard Dairy
-These smelt bad. I like cheese, but it was an overpowering sort of cheese smell, which isn't that nice.
20. Check out the contemporary skateboard deck graphics in Slam City Skates
-I used to skateboard, deck designs haven't really changed much in the past 3-4 years as far as I can tell
19. Smell the Coffee in Monmouth Coffee House
18. Visuit the Forbidden Planet and geek out on all the cool cinema related merchandise
17. Visit the music shops in of Denmark Street and feel the vibes of Hendrix, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Elton John who all recorded in basements there. Photograph yourself in front of No 6 where the sex pistols used to live above.
-I told my girlfriend about what we did today and the list and after hearing this treasure trail bullet point thing she was like "I wanna do graphics" I said it probably isn't all like this.
16. Find a new photographer you admire in Claire de Rouen Books
15. Pick up one of the free screening listings from outside the Prince Charles Cinema
14. Draw a crispy aromatic duck in one of the windows of the resaurants on Gerrard Street
13. Have a coffee at Bar Italia in Soho
-Won't be doing that again. £2.50 or something for the smallest cup I've ever seen (that didn't have spirits in it). Their espresso's must be thimble sized
12. Draw the cakes in the window at Patisserie Valerie
11. Buy a tinned product in Lina Stores Ltd
-This place is closed at the moment, but should be openning up in a few weeks.
10. Check out the magazine section in the basement of the Vintage Magazine Store
-This was on the coolest things I saw today, just loads of old magazines.
9. Try on a trendy item of clothing and photograph yourself wearing it in the changing room mirror in American Apparel
8. Take a self portrait lying on the grass in Soho Square
7. Have a cup of tea with the media types at Star Café
6. Draw the sushi moving round the conveyor belt at Yo Sushi
-The Yo Sushi staff were actually quite accomodating, they gave us a table to draw at and came over and asked us how things were going. I overheard the boss saying "Some of them might buy things, so we'll let them stay in here" but I think the waitress was genuinely interested.
5. Visit two record shops on Soho's famour Berwick Street
4. Photograph yourself on the wooden stairwell at Liberty depoartment store
3. See the free exhibition at the Photographers Gallery
-This was closed, and will be until november, 2011.
2. Check your email from a macbook air on display at the Apple Store
-I thought they might've sent us an email so we could prove we'd done this. They hadn't. If I were the teacher I would've done.
1. Ask an assistant in Nike Town if they sell Addidas trainers
-The chap we asked said they were on the fourth floor, and that he was a cage fighter. The first one was diffenitly a lie. The second part is still unconfirmed.

Out of all these I've only got 39, 38, 35, 34, 33, 32, 31, 17 and 16 left to do. I'm waiting on some pictures from Julia, hopefully she emails me them soon.

Gonna try to get it all sorted over the weekend I think. I thought maybe if I smoked whilst writing I'd write like Hunter S Thompson, but reading it back it's a lot more like Karl Pilkington. To fix this I should take more drugs and moan less.

That last bits a joke, I'm still gonna moan. We have to turn all of this into a map, I'm quite looking forward to it.

(I'll update this with pictures tomorrow morning, waiting on my camera battery to recharge)

Introduction

I managed to miss the deadline for making a blog, which is pretty poor. I wanted to do it, but I just didn't find the time. However, I've made it now and hopefully I'll keep it all upto date.

Our first session in graphics was pretty different to illustration (which is the other course I'm studying at UEL). Illustration seems pretty laid back, whereas graphics is really on it. I guess it's good to have some variation, but it's one extreme to another. Like everything, balance is good. I think sometimes though, even though I don't like structure I really need it.

Our first proper project (excluding the getting to know you project)




was an ID card thing. Just so the teachers have our contact details. We had to use playing cards as the basis for them, I got the seven and eight of diamonds. I wanted to take advantage of the medium. I mean, we had a playing card, I wanted to keep the fact that it was a playing card. My big idea was that I'd have the information (name, student number, contact details etc) on strips of paper that i'd glue onto the card, so you could still see the diamonds behind them.

Strictly speaking, this breaks one of the brief rules which was the two cards have to be identical, but it's only one diamond off, and I'd've had to be pretty lucky to get two of the same exact card.

In the end I think it turned out all right. Not the sharpest looking design, but I thought it was sort of quirky, and the hand made craft sort of approach was more who I am then just something made up in photoshop and printed out. Not that I'm knocking the people that did that, because the ones I saw that'd been done that way looked way better than mine. But at the end of the day, there's a reason people buy handmade stuff.

I didn't take photographs of my ID cards, but here's sort of a mock up:




Also have a sketchbook that we have a load of rules for as well. I started off well, doing a page all about what had happened in the weekend following that lesson, but then I flagged a little and my drawing in it since has been sporadic. I need to keep ontop of this. Things like that can just run away from you.