Introduction from London

Impending deadlines, production schedules, cooking, shopping, it all goes to one side for the Solstice. The image to the right is from a sketch crawl at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, London.

My focus tomorrow will be architectural studies and of course, people. My portfolio is short on architectural settings, so what better place for urban scenes than London.

We're planning on starting with coffee at 10am at Giraffe on the Southbank. (very civilised despite that dawn is at 3:55 tomorrow morning and dusk is at 22:09)

After coffee we'll sketch around Southbank, the bridge and make our way down the river to Tate Modern and the Millennium Bridge.

12:00 meet at the Tate Modern ground floor cafe for lunch and sharing. We can upload any images there and blog a little. Then, walk further down the river from the Tate Modern towards Southwark Cathedral.

15:00 meet at Southwark Cathedral with a planned break at Monmouth cafe on Southwark Street. Southwark Cathedral has places to sit out of the rain if needed. From there we will walk across London Bridge and make our way to the Barbican. The Art Gallery is on Level 3.

17:30 meet at Barbican. We are planning on viewing the 'Watch Me Move', Animation Festival Exhibit. On the Barbican site it says about this show: Tracing the history of animation over the last 150 years, Watch Me Move: The Animation Show brings together for the first time, over one hundred films by contemporary artists, cut-out, collage, puppet, clay and stop-motion animators, auteur filmmakers and exponents of experimental film alongside the creative output of the commercial studios.

Ending the day with this show will top off the year's longest day nicely. I'm an animator as well as an illustrator.

Just a little about me; I have served as the Regional Illustrator Coordinator for the British Isles since 2001, a position I took up shortly after I moved here from the US with my British husband and two small daughters 10 years ago. My illustrations have been published in children's books, editorials and advertising. Today, my daughters aren't small anymore and I also teach on the animation couse at Buckinghamshire New University two days a week. You can view my work at www.annemarieperks.com

I look forward to all the postings tomorrow!
Anne-Marie