Friday, January 15, 2016

2015 in summation, adventures, makings, illumastrations. PART TWO

PART TWO guys ok, if you missed it part ONE is here, in which I summarated my activities, on and off the drawing board from January to April 2015


Ways in which I've become a grown up in 2015:

I've drunk Lemsip with no sugar or even honey in it, I've worn eyebrow pencil on a day other than a wedding, gone running (voluntarily!), acquired a mortgage, learnt how to spell the word 'receive' correctly, graduated as a Master of Arts, bought a bottle of gin not specifically for a party but just to, you know, have some gin in.

Me with my Daddy, graduationing. 

However I know I am not a real grown up yet because:

I still do not like olives. Or whiskey. 

Also I'm still really bad at the eyebrow pencil thing.

And now.... the story continues.

With May.

In May last year I began a new stint of market stalling at Blackhorse Workshop in Walthamstow, a brilliant little corner of making and meeting that I was to revisit on most first Saturdays of the 2015 months that followed. 

As I obliquely mentioned in the first part of this yearly round up, Alex and I were flat hunting, and our grand plan was to buy a little place in Walthamstow. It's nice there. And was still relatively (for London) affordable. 

Trying to buy property in London is a little like engaging in a very high stakes game of chinese whispers with a group of overworked and undertrained goldfish, some of whom are actively looking for opportunities to screw you over. 
But we are truly lucky to have been in a position to even contemplate buying in London. And we like Walthamstow. And it was looking actually quite likely we were going to move there, so I thought I should insert myself in the local art scene. Thus the market. 

Here's a picture of me at Blackhorse Workshop drawing Olive. I don't actually know which month it's from. I found it on Google image search. It's a funny world we live in where it's easier for me to find a photo by Googling it than looking through my own files.

I've drawn lots of Walthamstow's younger residents now. And some of the less young ones too. 



Spoiler: we didn't move to Walthamstow.

In early to mid May I also attended the wedding of the lovely Rosemary and Andy, and went to an exhibition at the IOE where there was a tent full of UV crocheted jelly fish. That was good.

On the 18th June and I attended the Big Draw Awards ceremony at Painters Hall to receive (i before e except after c) our runners up award for the events we organised in 2014. I have written about it ad nauseum and pimped it to the nines, but in case you have missed all of that there's a write up here. 

It was really cool at one point I stood next to Bob and Roberta Smith and did not talk to him because he seemed busy. 


The very next day I was back in the limelight speaking at a Symposium at Birkbeck University and debating on the subject of Artist's Identity with various interesting people including this woman with a bag over her head.


I was going to blog the manuscript of my talk, and then I wasn't because I was going to rewrite it as an academic paper, but then I didn't do that, but I did write a piece on similar themes instead which you can read here if you like. It has a toaster in it, and a teddy bear dressed as a pope.

In May I also rode a singing speedboat down the River Thames, took my mother to the Magnificent Obsessions exhibition at the Barbican where I drew a pangolin, and went to see my sister sing in a concert, here's some drawings from that.


I also did this logo design for Zib at Adapt Events

In June, I went on a short adventure to Southampton, my place of university attendance. 
For dinosaurs and dancing. 


I only drew 3 Real TV Wisdom drawings in 2015, one of them was in June, of Ian (Ida) Board.


Because I am really good at continuing projects that I start for years and years and years, just really, really slowly. Ask me about the graphic novel I'm writing some time. 

It was also around this time that I started collaborating with Jen over at Little Carousel Gallery. 
A relationship which has gone some very exciting typographic places, but began with this piece


At the end of June, I went to Harry Potter World (also for some reason known as Warner Bros. Studio Tour London) with my sister and cousin Julia (who is a LOT better at eyebrow pencil than me). 

It is AMAZING! If you haven't been I recommend you go. 

I did some drawings while I was there:


And fell in love with the cabinet of graphic design.

I also completed my first ever 5k race for life, which is quite a big deal for someone who has been saying she hates running for as long as I have (basically my whole life). But after turning 30, you have to start doing war against your body because if you don't no-one else will. And your muscles will calcify. And your flab will engulf continents. And also because if there is something I hate more than running it is paying actual money for exercise. Also, because Cancer can suck my inappropriate. Or something. 

Plus I drew these birds on maps. On blocks of wood. They were cool. They're sold now. 

In July, I went to Scotland for the first time ever, to celebrate my friend Andrew's thirtieth. Most specifically we went to the Isle of Arran. Which is an area of outstanding natural beauty which puts the Isle of White to shame (sorry Ned). 


I did lots of colourful portraits at a small children's costume party in Regent's Park, and also started a semi-regular live portrait session relationship with The Big Chill bars.


This kids are so East London that twice as many boys asked for pink as girls.

As I've spent more and more time this year doing live portraits at bars and events, I've developed a good radar for the 'Golden Window' - the period when people are not too sober to say yes to a drawing, and not too drunk to stay even remotely still. This is at different times at different bars, and indeed on different days of the week, and can sometimes occur before lunchtime. At weddings this window is significantly smaller. But there is so much good will at weddings no-one even cares. 

Alex and I also went on more London wandering adventures in the summer months, including some canals, Columbia Road Flower Market, the Geffrye Museum, St John's Gate tour, and Trent Park.



Yes this photo was taken somewhere you can get to on a TUBE TRAIN. 

That is a whole three more months of 2015 stuff so I'm going to post this now as instalment two and keep you waiting (on tiptoes and tentahooks I'm sure) for my August adventures onward.

Understated apologies for the delay in getting these to you. I would like to say it's because I've been doing my tax return. But it's not. It's because I've been watching Downton Abbey. 


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