Chicken-Illustration Friday

I did this drawing in summer and never posted it, but it fits perfectly with this week's Illustration Friday Topic Chicken.

While in London for an illustration course, my class went to the Southbank to draw the people and the sights there. The Southbank is a walkway in London where street performers go to try to earn money off of tourists and there are a lot of people in costume who try to get paid for taking pictures with people and children. I sat down on a curb against a fence that faced the Thames River. Across from me was this guy in a chicken suit. When I sat down to draw him I was trying to imagine what it would be like if that's how I earned a living. From where I was sitting I couldn't really tell if he was happy with me or not for drawing him, because I actually was thinking that if that was my job I wouldn't want someone to draw a picture of it. But this chicken guy came over to me by the time I had finished and LOVED this drawing! He wanted me to give it to him, but I didn't really want to, and also I wanted to be able to bring the drawing back to my class and show my instructor. We exchanged emails so that I could send him a copy of the image, or talk about an exchange. The chicken man now had a name, his name was Mike, and he was from Poland.
I agreed to have breakfast with Mike in exchange for the drawing. We met up for breakfast, and Mike proceeded to tell me his story about how he became a chicken man: after moving to London from Poland, several connections fell through for him, and it was difficult to find a job. After some hard times that including worrying about where to even sleep for the night he acquired this chicken suit because it was left behind at a job site. He felt that God had blessed him with this suit as a way of making a living, and that it was his destiny to be a chicken man. I was humbled by his story, his faith, and his enthusiasm for earning a living as a performer on the Southbank. He promised that my drawing would be hung proudly in his home, and I was honoured to give it to him.

A visit to the Imperial War Museum in London

Today as part of the illustration course that I'm taking we went to the Imperial War Museum. We drew people, tanks, planes, exhibits, and whatever interested us there. It was a well stocked and laid out museum. There were exhibits on children in England during World War II, Holocaust, World Wars 1 and 2, Food during the war, the terrorism in Northern Ireland,and others wars that the UK has been involved in. It was different getting the perspective of the Brits for the wars, since I am more familiar with Canadian History, and Canadians involvement invading France. I was less aware of the effect of the war on the actual Islands of Great Britain.

Here are a few of my drawings from today. I'm actually really enjoying going out and collecting images on site. It is a refreshing way to work that is new for me. The paper colour is off because I took the photos in my room, and should have really waited until it was light out tomorrow to get proper lighting.

I have arrived in London!

I arrived yesterday in a slightly dazed state due to not sleeping all night except briefly for one hour on the plane. After finding my residence, I had to find my school's office and show them my passport. Then, after getting that out of the way I wondered around London for a while, whithout a true purpose except to find something to eat and just appreciate the sights around me. I told myself that I wasn't allowed to go to sleep until at least 8 pm, with walking being the only thing keeping me awake. by around 6:30 or so I had wandered over to St. Paul's Cathedral, which is a stunning, stately looking building that is enormous.
I didn't bring my camera with me for this jaunt around because I was just too tired, so I stole a picture of St. Paul's from this site: http://beautyisobjective.blogspot.com/2010/05/london-attractions.html

Having slept well, and waking up at a riduclous hour (4:30 am), I am ready to plan out my day, and actually enjoy London as a well rested individual. My course doesn't start until Monday, so I have a few days of full-fledged sight seeing to do.
On the agenda for today: National Gallery or Tate Modern?

First impressions of London:
It is busy! So many people walking, with a purpose and somewhere to go.
There are a lot of busses.
The English use direct, but strange wording on their signs. For example in the tube stops the signs read, "WAY OUT" with arrows. I find this strange because why not use the word exit?
The tube's signage could use more icons (I think I am saying this because of my familiarity with Mexico City's metro system that links each stop with a sympbol, which I appreciate as a visual person).
I like the accents (something I knew before I arrived...)

Here is something I wrote while waiting in Iceland for my connecting flight:

I'm sitting in the Kevalik Airport in Iceland having spend the past 6 hours on a plane. It is 1 am for me, which means it is approaching my normal bedtime hours, however, a three hour plane ride awaits. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep a little along the way so that all of tomorrow(today) isn't a write off due to lack of sleep. So far, Iceland kind of looks like how used to imagine it before I really ever saw any pictures of Iceland- It looks a little the way the prairies look in spring when there's that transition time between brown and green. We flew down onto the runway which opens up off of the coastline. Unfortunately I wasn't in a window seat, so I couldn't really get the best view of flying in off of the ocean, but the land surrounding the tarmac is made up of varying degrees of low-lying green and brown bits of grassiness. I would say that it is good advice to not judge a country only on their airport. It is now raining, and I am disapointed in Iceland's airport because it is too early for any shops to be open, and I'm just really thirsty right now, and was hoping for maybe some tea or at least a bottle of water. Not even a vending machine in sight. The airport itself looks Scandinavian (or maybe Canadian...). Of course by Scandinavian I mean that it looks like the furniture may have been designed by Ikea. There are large floor to ceiling angled windows looking out onto the ariport runways, which I appreciate because I hate it when airports forget to include windows in their terminals. I can hear change being counted, and perhaps the sound of an espresso machine which tells me that something is open, so I may try to get something to drink before we board in 10 minutes.
______

As a note to that, after writing this I ended up chatting with two guys who had also come from Winnipeg and were waiting for the one-hour delayed London Flight. This made the airport waiting much less dull, and one named Garret who lives in the UK gave me some helpful guidance with the trains and underground tickets once we got off the plane in London.

Exciting Events

One of my best friends in the whole world is getting married! I designed her wedding invitations for her. Happily, she only needed a simple drawing to complete the idea she had about the invitations. This is it without the text(though in final draft we ended up switching it to landscape format). The sketch above is a cartoon version of them.

In other exciting news, I leave for LONDON, ENGLAND in one week! I bought a new sketchbook today and couple of other supplies I will need for the week-long short course that I'm taking. I'm starting to get really excited both about London, and about taking an illustration course. I ended up deciding to take a course called The Art of Witness: Graphic Reportage at Central St. Martins College of Art and Design. The excitement is really starting to build now that I have time to think about the trip.

Art School Getaway?

May first finds me sitting at home, comfortably in my pyjamas in the late afternoon on a Saturday drinking Dr. Pepper. Things completed today: spoke on the phone with my two best friends, and also my brother, completed an Illustration Friday image, read the paper, and contemplation about my summer plans. I have been thinking about the idea of taking a summer course somewhere far away for part of the summer. My research into art schools outside of Manitoba has me looking at such schools as the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, Concordia University in Montreal, and I have even been delving into researching schools across the Atlantic in Europe.

Every time I think I'm finished with school, I always seem to go back.
Emily Carr is very appealing to me as a school because it has a good reputation for actually teaching technique, and after reviewing just the summer session courses that they offer, it makes me wish that I had done my undergrad there, instead of at the School of Art at the U of M. It's been a few years since I've spent any time in Vancouver, and think it would be a nice choice. However, the Vancouver lure isn't nearly as strong as the lure of Montreal or Europe(both places I have visited in the last two years, and have since wanted to go back!). Montreal has disappointed me in that Concordia University has already closed it's acceptance for summer session courses.

That leads me to my grand idea of taking off to LONDON, England for several weeks out of the summer. I was looking at a few different schools and found the University of the Arts in London which is an amalgamation of 5 different art and design colleges in the heart of London. Their short courses are a week long, and offer a great range of courses that has me wishing I had the time and resources to do another degree with with them. I was also trying to find some English speaking schools in either Paris or Spain, but could only find a few limited options that were well beyond my price range. Spain had great appeal to me because if I could improve my Spanish skills at the same time as my art making skills, I would be accomplishing quite the zealous summer goals(as well I have a certain affection for Spanish culture having spent months in both Guatemala and Mexico). London naturally has some attraction for me to visit because I've never spent any time there(other than a 5-hour layaway in Heathrow airport), and it has all the things a massive city should have to offer to a twenty-something, museum-hungry, architecture-enthused artist who likes walking. As well it is English speaking, which eliminates potential language frustration. I am about 80% decided about what I'm going to do, and want to submit an application soon to make sure I get into the course that I want.

These are my current thoughts anyways. I have learned about myself that I am open to suggestions, so if I come across another idea, I could persuade myself to adapt my plans.
I feel like I should note, perhaps for any naysayers out there who think to themselves, "But, doesn't Winnipeg offer any good courses during summer?" Well the answer is not really- I tried to sign up for two courses, through Red River College and The Winnipeg Art Gallery Studio and both were cancelled due to lack of interest. Also, I just like to travel.