hello journal.. or travel journal.. or whatever this is in real old Bert fashion anyway.

I've now been in London for over a week and it's been great.. but I've changed my initial plan a lot.
My initial plan was to go here and try to make a living, and while making a living here is far away from impossible for an artist, it's also quite far away from what I expected when I made up my super confident goals hehe. I guess I had no clue that so many people even existed in the whole world.. any less would I expect to find em all in one place..

however... today I was out shopping for more books.. I bought two small books on Gerome, 1 anatomy book, 1 figure in motion book, 1 facial expression book and 1 advanced perspective book... the book shelf here at the inn is getting quite huge already... but I'm glad and I don't regret that this is what I'm putting my money at... I don't have access to my laptop a lot and after 10 or 11 years looking at 60-120hz monitors I'm getting a little tired of it.. especially reading on screen.

The first two Gerome books where the last two available at Foyles, one of them which is basically a biography doesn't have that much images, but it has a lot of good information on Gerome and his life.. which enforced my 'changed plans' a little. The second Gerome book is an italian book translated from egypt I think.. it has a lot of his sketches and buying peoples sketchbooks is always great since you're able to further understand the fact that these guys were actually humans.. too.

The 'anatomy book' is actually George Bridgman's well-known "A complete guide to drawing from life". It only costed me £10 ( wtf ) and was the cheapest yet thickest and largest book of them all. I never really was a fan of bridgman's simplifcation and 'formulas' ( never really liked formulas for art in general... ) but after browsing back and through this book at Foyles I realized I had to get it...

the last 'drawing' book i got was "advanced perspective"... the author i already forgot.. but the book looks great and it really lives up to its name.

figure drawing in motion and facial expressions is essentially just a lot of photography.. the first one being figures and the last being tons and tons of photos of people doing randomly selected faces.

My friend keeps on being pessimistic and tells me over and over that "you can only read one book at a time" but I'm not sure if I'm fortunate or unfortunate that one of the things that I can learn more and more from and never get tired of going back to is books.

Never...Never pass up on a good art book.. If you're anything like me you'll regret it the day you realize its 4 times as expensive and/or not in print anymore.

but anyway.. back to the 'change of plan'.

I'm very inspired by London's architecture, and it has already filled my brain with stuff I had no idea would be interesting before.... Using very simple "objects" to build very complex and beautiful buildings seem to be a specialty here. But what London have done so far to me have made me realize that there is so much more to discover.. ( like if I didn't already knew that... you probably think I live in a box... haha) And inspired by the artist that i've lately read about I have almost ( like 90% certainty) , almost decided to leave London in a few weeks and visit France, Italy and lastly Germany.

I'm already looking into this.. I've met a lot of travelers already and their experience is always nice to listen to.. makes you even more motivated..and inspired.

I really really want to see Italy, and though I know nothing of their Language it would still be interesting just to go to their "tourist" places.. Although seeing the Italian Riviera would be nothing but 110% amazing... not sure if that counts to standard tourist places... I was thinking rome .. or something. haha.

Even if going to Italy might be hard... traveling around in the France/Belgium/German area wouldn't.. I mean.. with some dedication everything is possible.. but I would certainly be happy for now haha.. ( I wouldn't mind going to Morocco (a) but then I'd need my friend Nibras to translate for me.. since they only speak Arabian or even a little French ) but whatever... if I survive the already London based swine flu then I can probably go see Italy and Morocco later in life..

so... thats the plan.. go to France.. maybe Italy... then Germany... Germany is special because in Germany.. the Conceptart.org workshop is gonna take place somewhere in mid-august ( when I really need to be in Sweden and finish school or have a fulltime job.. what a quitter I am.. )


everyone should check [link] out for more information

anyhow.. today I did more than just picking up artbooks.. I bought a watercolor set and a watercolor-moleskin sketchbook which I enjoy to sketch in even more than the ordinary mole-sketchbooks with super flat pages... those watercolor ones have those 'qualitys' but are rougher and has a bit of a texture. Almost feels a bit faked.. but I love it haha. We'll see what I can do with it I went out drawing a bit in the city at 11 or 12 this evening but returned to the inn quite soon after only getting one environment down... and well in the hostel I decided to keep drawing so I sat down in the lobby where I tried to catch and study how clothes work while people were slowly dancing and walking around hehe.
After a while some German students sat down at my table and wanted to talk a little about drawing.. Apparently one guy there had studied art and the others had taken at leas some art classes and they compared my exercise to what they got in school hehe. They asked me where to find a night club and I pointed them in the right direction.. and as we were all going to leave the lobby at pretty much the same time one of the girls asked if I did portraits.. I said "no, not really but if you want to sit for me tomorrow I'd be happy.. I'm not very good with portraits but it will help" and she said yes ofc

so.. that means I already have two female models that I can draw during the next two days.. I guess we can see if I get any better.. which I'm very determined to get

so thats it for today.. now i'm going to sleep in my sweaty hot bed with 7 ppl in the room snoring .. lets see how easy that is... lol

ciao travel book!