Lecture Four: Loughborough University

A short train ride south from Sheffield and we arrive in Loughborough, home of Loughborough University, the site of our next lecture. We were greeted at the train station by our old friend Andrew Selby and his colleague Alastair Adams, a noted portrait artist and head of the illustration program. Thanks to the generosity of Andrew and his wife Felicity we were invited to stay at their lovely home in Oakham the evening before our lecture. Located about 45 minutes from Loughborough we arrived in Oakham in time for dinner with the Selby's at one of the area's oldest pubs, The Olive Branch.

The following morning we got a better look at the beautiful countryside as we took the trip back up to the university. Andrew had scheduled my talk for the evening but had Sarah booked for a roundtable talk about publication design with the students interested in publishing in mid-afternoon. Reports are that Sarah did quite well in her first-ever lecture, mine followed in the evening.

A fairly restful day before our lectures we got a chance to see the sites around the small village town, had a coffee and English Breakfast at a lovely spot call Wests and got a tour of the illustration floors in a building that had great light and a life drawing studio which was once used as the energy generator plant for the entire campus, plans are for the department to move into newer quarters in the not too distant future.

Unfortunately we didn't get to see that much student work as they were in the midst of tutorials but we did wander about the studios to see the work hanging on the wall.

The evening's lecture took place before a fairly-packed auditorium, especially considering it was Guy Fawkes Day, the equivilant to our 4th of July. We had lots of questions during the lecture and afterwards. Then off to bed for our trip back to London on Friday morning.

Andrew introducing the speaker for the evening, photo by Sarah Munt

Lecture Two: Central St Martin's

Following a wonderful lunch with Brian Grimwood and Ben Cox from the Central Illustration Agency we ventured first to the Apple Store to get a necessary connector to work with all the overhead digital projectors. From there it was back to the flat and then on to Central St Martin's for our evening lecture with their Master of Arts students.

Thanks to Patrick Roberts, Course Director, MA Communication Design, for helping us setup for the presentation and it was good to see Gary Powell whom we'd met a few years ago when he brought his students over to the studio. And of course, Andrew Foster who'd arranged our lecture. Andrew is this year's 3x3 Educator/Illustrator of the Year and is featured in the 3x3 Illustration Annual No. 6 due out later this month. Andrew is an exciting and intense artist who is definitely blurring the lines between illustration and fine arts. We also met the artist, Anna Bhushan who had just returned from a four-year stay in New York.

The lecture was followed by one of the more intense Q&A periods we'd experienced on either side of the Atlantic. A brief dinner followed at a Greek restaurant around the corner. Thanks to Andrew, Gary and Anna for making us feel so welcome.

Sorry no photos, there were problems with the camera.