Cartoon Museum Reveiw

Cartoon Museum Visit, Wednesday 2nd March, 2011.

This museum has collections of comic book drawings on the top floor, illustrative work on the ground floor and an exhibition area. The exhibition on at the moment is Ronald Searles’ drawings on “Mrs. Mole’s” life. The work is about the little creature in different situations and adventures throughout her lifetime. They are drawn in pen and ink, and coloured with water colour paint. I read in the brief piece of information at the entrance of the exhibition space that the artist made these drawings when he and his wife were made aware that she was seriously ill. Searles made a drawing each time they had to make a visit to the doctors, to try and lighten the mood and keep his wife a little happier.

The illustrations are very detailed, the colours are extremely vibrant for watercolour paint, the brush strokes are all precise and extremely thin. The quirky character of Mrs. Mole is presented to the viewers in every scenario, each time doing something different to the next. They made me smile and some even got a little chuckle out of me, and whilst I was walking around I realised that the other people there were smiling and laughing at the drawings. Mrs. Mole has big round brown eyes, with thick black eyelashes, she has a large plump body and a pair of thin and narrow feet. She comes across to me as a lovely lady, in the drawings she is always surrounded by nature and patterns or flowers, either in the background or on her clothing etc. There are some running themes in his work which jumped out at me as soon as I’d looked at the first three, love, peace and joy.

The work is presented very neatly, in a rather organised fashion, the paper used for every drawing is the same size, same type, framed up in exactly the say way, and hung at the same level in a horizontal line around the room. Because of the short explanation about the reasons behind this work, I felt as though I connected on a slightly higher level than I usually would. This exhibition made me become even more aware at how much time, effort and love goes into work. The pieces are personal to him but the scenarios and situations presented are ones which everybody can relate to in one way or another. I drew one of the illustrations myself, spending a good twenty minutes or so standing there, getting cramp in my hand from clasping at my sketchbook for so long, and even then my drawing looked like it could be worked on top of for hours yet. This just pushed me to think more about the time I spend on a single piece of work, Searle has thought about the whole sheet of paper, every centimetre is covered and has been considered.

His work has inspired me to want to be better in my personal studies, the precision in his work is amazing, the character Mrs. Mole never changes, she looks the same in every scene, allowing the viewer to become familiar with the work, making the collection even better to look at. I would definitely encourage people to look at his work and to visit the Cartoon Museum whenever they are in London, I found it one the most interesting places to be as an art student.

Martin Parr Talk at Galpharm Stadium

When we were sat in the meeting room listening to Martin Parr, i decided that i would look at his work closer when i got home, as i do know his work, but probably only a very small percentage. This is one of favourites, simply beacuse of the time period in which it was taken. I am attracted to the american flag flying in the wind, the gorgeous car the woman is filling up with fuel, and the woman herself, she looks like a mannequin you'd see in a shop window.

London photographs!

This is my favourite photograph from the whole trip. Here i am in the Borrowers room set, where everything is oversized and we look tiny in comparison! This was in the London Film Museum, here are some more photos from it...

Doctor Who stage set, i was always scared of the Daleks, so thought a photograph would help overcome that fear!

I took this photograph when we got off of a tube out onto ground level, its a real shame that this fountain was underneath a building which was covered in scafolding because then i could have gotten a better photograph of the whole thing. Nevertheless, the workmanship was amazing and this sculpture really got me excited for the War Horse show i was about to see the next day.

When i visited the British Museum this ancient head caught my attention, and held it for a long time, i dont know why i took so much interest in this particular one, but i decided to sit down and draw from it. After sitting there for a few minutes a group of foreigners walked into the room and stood behind me where i was on the bench, and started studying my drawing, all the time looking up into the glass cabinet to check how accurate i was. This spurred me on to want to make it a high quality drawing. I used 3 different inks to get the shading, and i am happy wioth the outcome, though it is not perfectly accurate, i like the piece's character, it looks asif it is alive in a way. I will try to scan this in at college, so that i can see any similarities or differences, maybe find ways to improve my techniques.

i took this photo whilst waiting to find out where my group had wandered off to! I think that i have a postcard from a few years back which looks similar to this. The roof is a peice of art in itself, i spent a good five minutes just leaning over the balcony up there, looking down at everyone.

This was a T.Rex in the London Film Museum, there was a smaller head on the ground which was controlled by a gear stick in a box, so whilst we were all concentrating on the small mechanical head, the large skeletal figure on the stage started moving and making noise, i managed to get a few shots of it in motion, i think this looks really magical!

LANDAN baby!!!

On my 5 day/ 4 night visit to London, starting on the 28th of February, i went to 7 art galleries/ museums, saw 2 shows, and spent £250 (- mostly on food and drink!)

Monday; arrived at the hotel at 2pm.
; hopped on the tube at rush hour to go to the Dennis Seevers House Tour at 7pm.

Tuesday; get tube to Whitechapel Museum 10am.
; buy "Indie craft" book from amazon, bookshop too expensive for me, but i did buy 6 postcards as i felt abit mean finding it cheaper online.

; catch tube back to Russel Square, go to the British Museum at 3pm.
; Buy £18,50 ticket from Leicster Square to see "Wicked" at 7pm.

Wednesday; Walk to the Cartoon Museum, £4 student entry, near Russel Square at 11am.
; Go back to the British Museum to look at Picasso's drawing ehibition at 1pm.
; Catch tube to the Natural History Museum at 2pm.
; Go watch Warhorse at the New London Theatre on Drury Lane, £52.50 ticket, row F, best seats ever!!!

Thursday; Visit the London Film Museum, £11.50 for student ticket, allowing me to see the Ray Harryhausen, Star Wars and Charlie Chaplin exhibitions.

Friday; Time to come home on the coach, i took this free time to look through all of the photographs that i had taken over the week, look at my postcards and leaflets from the visits, i still have to upload them, and when i do i will talk about the art work in more detail!