A long, drawn out trip... (pt. 2)

I've been meaning to do this post forever, and other things kept coming up. It's more on the personal side of things since it was a vacation...or, excuse me, holiday, but there was a bit of sketching involved, as well as a visit with an old friend.

Last month I went on a much anticipated trip to England. By "much anticipated" I mean saving/planning/looking forward to it since my last trip to England. It was an amazing experience, especially since it was the first trip I've ever taken completely by myself. I got my fill of great museums (and concerts) in London, and plenty of relaxing nature walks (and pints) in Cambridge. I had originally planned to sketch more, but after the first day I realized I was on vacation, so that went out the window.

Sketches from the Natural History Museum.

 As some followers may recall from my last trip, one of the absolute highlights was getting to visit my favorite illustrator/hero at his home studio. I'm very happy to say that I got to do it again.

 

Getting to visit Gerald again was absolutely wonderful. He's still the amazingly nice person I met in Savannah three years ago, and still working in the business and loving what he does. An added bonus of the visit was the fact that, while I was in town I attended one of Roger Waters' Wall shows, so we got to have a chat about how far the show has come since it was originally done in the 80's. I also got to show him some of my more current work, as well as talk about what I've been up to since I last saw him, including some of the difficulties of freelancing. His response is something that will stick with me for a long time: "It's very difficult to be an artist...but we're very lucky to be artists." That is one of the things have I have always loved about Gerald; every time I have seen him I have never felt a separation between professional and novice, famous and not. He has always treated me as a fellow artist.

As always, England was wonderful and beautiful, and I'm already saving up for my next trip. Until then I'll be fondly dreaming of her green fields and fish and chips while completing my 2012 Sketchbook Project submission.