Web Banner Fun

Here's a little web banner I made for Peepshow's website today. I liked it so much I turned it into a wrapping paper pattern.

Busy Busy

Things have been pretty busy at Peepshow but I have had lots of time to see the city as well. I don't have regular access to a scanner (well I really just don't want to bug people and use theirs) so I will scan and color these drawings a little at a time. Here's part of Westminster Abbey.

Partings and Beginnings

This morning my mom and sister left for home. It was really hard to see them go. I have had so much fun with them and I miss them so much already. It is hard to believe that I would be homesick in London. It is such an amazing city, but my sister and mom are pretty amazing company. I didn’t have much time to think about it because I had to be out of the hotel into my new living arrangements, which are slightly less glamorous, and onto the tube for my first day at Peepshow by 8:45. I met with Ann outside of the Hoxton Hotel and took a car to the studio. It was really serendipitous that Ann was here when I began. It certainly helped with my nerves. The nervousness turned out to be unwarranted. Everyone at Peepshow was wonderfully gracious. They are such a fun group of people. We spent about an hour getting acquainted then looked at the schedule of things coming up for the studio. They are in the process of revising their online shop (my first job) and also preparing work and products for their Christmas show. Jenny was even so kind as to suggest that I could have a print in the show. It will take a few days until I have everyone’s name down. I spent most of the day talking with Jenny, Lucy, and Miles (who even gave me his personal copy of London A to Z so I wouldn’t get lost running errands.)

After laying out a rough schedule of projects and things for me to see and experience I was sent on my first errand. We ordered some pegboard from a hardware store and I went to pick it up. Although it doesn’t sound very interesting, it ended up being quite an adventure. We had to have the board cut in half so that I could carry it still leaving it 4’x4’ each. And despite all of the holes in them they were still quite heavy. When I tried to get them on the bus the drive told me I couldn’t. I ended up sneaking on the back of the bus anyway and a very kind woman swiped my oyster card for me. When I got back I painted one of the boards a light grey. Tomorrow we will talk about how to style the photos. I am very excited. The work everyone was working on looked really amazing.

After work I got curry at what turned out to be one of the best Thai cafes I have ever eaten at. It is almost time for bed, but not before a pint at the pub.

On the Brits and Jay Walking

I'm learning that here in London the cross walk signals are more of a suggestion than a cut and dry law. I haven't quite figured the system by which they decide whether they will be flattened or not, but I have learned to herd with them and make it across safely and timely.

Mummies and Churches

I am having such a good time that I have fallen behind on the blog. Wednesdays night we decided to take a trip to Harrods and get something from the food court. It was a toss up between caviar for £450 or some chocolates for £85 in the end we decided to buy a pastey at the corner market for £1.99. Thursday was a lot of fun. We walked to the British Museum. We had a bit of a late start as we were all still a bit jet lagged and falling asleep at night was still a little difficult. We managed to walk through almost the entire collection which consists of over (2 million objects!) They had a special exhibition of Moctazuma (Montezuma) which we didn't pay to see. I am familiar with his revenge. It has been getting dark early and by the time we left, at about five, the sun was already setting. We went back to the hotel to get something to eat and left again for Parliament Square and Westminster Abbey. It was Guy Fawkes day and we expected that there would have been a bigger to do outside of Parliament but there just seemed to be extra guards posted. We got some wonderful pictures of Big Ben, Westminster, and Parliament as well as some surrounding streets.

Parks and Recreation

Wednesday the weather was beautiful so we decided to enjoy some of the outdoors. We began with a walk around Kensington Gardens. We stopped by Kensington Palace, the birthplace of Queen Victoria. We stopped my the Serpentine and visited the statue of Peter Pan. We took a quick trip on the Tube to Greenpark and walked to Buckingham Palace, there was a large crowd but nothing too exciting going on, I suspect the royal family was having lunch or something pretty pedestrian. It was still pretty early so we took a walk around St. James' Park (my favorite so far.) When we reached the far end we saw and interesting building and decided to investigate. It turned out the be the Household Calvary museum. In the attempt to take pictures, my sister was almost trampled twice by the Calvaryman on foot (who we lovingly named "chop-chop") We then went on to Trafalgar Square, but decided to leave the National Portrait Gallery for another day. We took the Tube back to Earl's Court and had a pint and some dinner at the Blackbird, our corner pub, which surprisingly offered a vegetarian shepherds pie (American Airlines can learn a thing or two from them.)

Drawings from the Flight

Before I left of London I had to take care of some "legal" issues at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Traffic Court. Here are some the characters I saw on the Subway ride over.


The first leg of the journey was from Los Angeles to Dallas. The flight was surprisingly longer than I expected. Here's my sister and my mom.


On the flight from Dallas to Heathrow I was separated from my mom and sister by the isle and American Airlines made a mistake with my meal. Actually it was my mistake (I had forgotten to request a vegetarian meal until that morning and even though they promised it would be taken care of it wasn't) All in all the flight wasn't bad, but I was happy to land all the same.