Art School Confidential part one

I know from experience that I can't handle long stretches in an office without some kind of creative outlet. When I first left uni, I would do short temp. contracts with the broadcasting company then go play on film sets or do some writing in the month or so between the jobs. The year in New York, when I HAD to stay a whole year in the same office job really ground me down at times - probably what pushed me to really get the freelance thing going. The writing, along with planning and doing small zines and projects with CC (with more emphasis on the planning; this 'planning' often took place at Union Pool or the Pink Pony or somewhere similar, which may explain why it was more talk, less action...) helped make the continuous office existence more or less bearable.

Back to the present, and what with this "two week temp job" now stretching into its eighth month, and fed up of office life, I took a week off work to go do summer school - 'Illustration for Comics and Graphic Novels' at Central St Martins.

Having booked the course in a flurry of excitement with the intention of re-reading Will Eisner and Scott McCloud and getting back into drawing practice, it then happened that I was given a last-minute freelance assignment (Siouxsie Sioux!) with a super-short turnaround, which basically squashed my ideas of turning up well-read and well-prepared. The Sunday night before the course I started having kittens (What if I'm not good enough? What if everyone can see I'm a fraud? I won't be the only girl, will I? What if everyone is younger than me?); I had somewhat panic-stricken conversation with Dan, who, as my chief source of all things art-related, I had hoped would calm my nerves, but when he left to go for brunch (the five hour time difference, folks), I succumbed to the fear - and gave up and watched the musical episode of Buffy. Good prep work.

As it turns out it was all fine. I got up to Holborn with about half an hour in hand so I downed some coffee then went up to CSM HQ on Southampton Row. I was directed to room 214, where I sat and waited until the lecturer turned up near to 10. We chatted a little about my background (writing) and comics and stuff, while waiting for the rest of the class to appear. They never did. The lecturer eventually went to see what had happened - and turns out we'd both been directed to the wrong classroom. We went up to the third floor where everyone was waiting. Once in the new classroom we were made to do those horrendously awkward intros that people leading groups are so fond of making you do. I was relieved to discover I wasn't the only one that wasn't an arts major (nor was I the only girl, or the oldest).

These first couple days we've had to keep pairing up and drawing each other in different poses and so on - first of all focusing on facial expressions, then moving on to full body poses - and of course both times I got the guy who's doing an MA in illustration and the guy who's in the middle of an arts degree and whose drawings reminded me quite a lot of those in the 'Fables' series, making my amateur attempts look... well, even more amateur. It was, however, quite heartening to hear a lecturer (from Central St Martins, no less) tell me "I don't know what you're talking about, you CAN draw".

A selection days one and two; the central figure is a copy of Ramona Flowers, heroine of the Scott Pilgrim series, created by Bryan Lee O'Malley





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