Brief Overview of other things I visited on my trip

Westminster Abbey

Here is the postcard of the sculpture I spoke of in the Shakespeare Locations in London post. It really doesn't do it justice!



The Charles Dickens Museum

This building is one of the places where Charles Dickens actually lived. There was such a huge collection of Charles Dickens book editions here, cases full of them. On special display were some of the very early publications.



In the first half of the school year I did a book cover for Charles Dickens' "Bleak House". Before I started illustrating, I did research on the existing book covers, naturally I discovered the original cover. There it was sitting in a case, the very cover I had seen on the internet. Not only the Bleak House copy either, but also a large amount of ther books from the same printer/illustrator.



The Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221b Baker Street

I arrived at the Baker Street Tube Station and finally I had found what had been missing from the other stations. This one, unlike the other new and clean stations, was dark and grimy, it was positively creepy... I LOVED IT!!! As I was heading off to 221b Baker Baker Street this was such a treat. I could just imagine Moriarty hiding around the corner and Watson following Holmes as he eagerly discovered clues to unravel a mystery. It immediately set the scene and made me feel a bit dissapointed that I didn't have any Sherlock Holmes projects coming up, but no fear as there's a long fun future ahead.



I carried on to locate the famous 221b Baker Street. While waiting outside, as only so many people were allowed in at a time, I chatted to the guard in full bobby costume of the period. Very nice bloke, as were all the people working there which always makes a visit so much nicer.



When I was allowed to enter, I found that the house had been recreated to give as strong an atmosphere as the Tube Station. After walking up the first flight of stairs which creaked beneath me with every step I came to Holmes and Watson's living room. No surface was safe, the room was absolutely heaving with trinkets and tools of detection.



Next door was Sherlock's bedroom which was the same as the previous in it's plethora of items. Up another moaning flight of stairs and I came to a room which held all sorts of supposèd artefacts from the Sherlock Holmes tales. (These were accompanied by quotations, for if one's knowledge of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novels wasn't quite up to scratch, I have to admit mine wasn't. I should be as equally agitated by myself as by the Rossetta Stone lady it would seem.) Into Watson's room there were all sorts of potions and other odd things hiding in cabinets as of course he is a Doctor by profession.



Up the last flight of stairs to find two rooms full of waxwork figures (Madame Tussauds is only just down the road) from the books including Holmes, Watson, Moriarty and other victims and passers-by and not to be forgotten the Hound of the Baskerville's head which was mounted on the wall. If you weren't convinced this was his house yet, which I'm sure any easy-to-fool tourists probably were, another small flight of stairs was to be found. Up there, flung into a dark dusty corner, was a collection of old suitcases ready for any trips, just like you'd expect in any house.



Portobello Road Market

I watched many Disney movies when I was little, one of them was Bedknobs and Broomsticks. This featured a scene set in the Portobello Road Market so I really wanted to go and see what it was really like. It was a lot busier than on the movie and come to think of it there were probably as many people singing there as well. I did look for a stereoscope, thinking I might get a good deal, but I didn't even find one.



V&A

As you may remember, I mentioned earlier that there was a particular reason for me to head back to the V&A. At the beginning of this school year I did a project on Punk Clothing. My workplace at school had numerous Adam and the Ants pictures up on the wall which were a pleasure to look at ;). Well I discovered that Adam Ant's Prince Charming outfit was at the V&A. It was in the performance section which I had just literally been around the corner from when I was there the first time.



When I went into the Performance section I had another surprise before finding Adam's very dishy outfit. As I like making clothes and costumes, I regularly google pictures to find inspiration. One time when looking up faerie dresses and skirts I found the most beautiful picture of a tutu-like dress. I saved the picture but had no idea where it had come from. Then at the V&A I turned the corner after having worked down a long hallway adorned with Beatrix Potter originals (:D) and there it was, the very dress. I was completely amazed. I managed to snap some very bad and out of focus photos, due to low lighting and not a particuarly great camera.



Carrying on I saw loads of cool costumes and then... Prince Charming. It was absolutely wicked, I want that outfit and if the young original Adam Ant could be thrown in that would obviously be a bonus :P I also had the luck to discover all of the Shakespeare items I mentioned earlier in the Performance Section, so it really was worth going back.



The British Museum

As I said before, the British Museum was as impressive as I had expected it to be. Just quickly before I move on, there were a few other things that were really cool in the Egyptian section. One thing was a collection of three men but what I thought made them particularly cool was the way in which their faces had been smashed. It made them look like zombies or you could imagine like the sculptures that came to life in th Mummy Movies.



A couple of other notable things were a giant scarab beetle (Cheper) and a very cute Falcon.



Along with the Egyptians I also really love the Celts, the Vikings and other old European civilisations. I was amazed to see in the postcard section of the shop that this was the actual home of the Battersea Shield, not only this but also the Sutton Hoo Grave artefacts, a large collection of the Lewis Chessman and a shield which I had drawn last year in the summer from a photograph in a book. I was also very happy to discover some of John Dee's possessions while looking around.









The Science Museum

Although this would have been a lot more fun if I had not been alone, as a good amount of it was interactive, I still saw a lot of interesting things. There was a huge collection of clocks and watches, a section on geometry which was very interesting and two floors of medical history diaramas and items which I enjoyed seeing as I studied this for a term at school in England.







I visited a quite a few other places as well but these are the ones of relevance to illustration.

I had a brilliant time in London. It was great staying with Keith and Patrick and it was such a lovely evening with them, Graham, Jim and Doug.

Inspiration at the British Museum

Towards the end of my trip in London I was starting to get worried. I still hadn't had an idea I was happy with for the Doctor Who character. I had figured out that I wanted to design a creature that transformed in the good old were- fashion but I hadn't known from were- to what?

On Sunday, I went to the British Museum. I've always wanted to go there ever since my interest in history started (I even used to want to be an archaeologist).





I went to the Egyptian section first. This had been one of my main historical interests for a very long time and I didn't want to miss out if these artifacts were ever moved back to Egypt after the ever lasting debates. The first thing that struck me was the Rossetta Stone. I patiently waited my turn to actually get anywhere near the thing. At first I was quite calm in thought but my aggrevation, in true old grumpy Victor Meldrew style constantly grew towards the people looking at the Stone. Already having had that moment of awe stolen from me (that I was lucky enough to experience in front of the bust of Nefertiti in Berlin) as the people around it were just too bloody annoying. It really proved to me that these artifacts had become celebrities. People didn't want to see them because of their amazing qualities or historical significances, but purely because they are so well known. When standing right in front of the stone I heard a lady next to me say, "Oh the three texts all say the same thing." OMG please save me from my own dispair, you idiot this is the stone that that good old Frenchie used to crack the code of ancient hiëroglyphs. There was another incident but I will spare you as the frustration is my own and probably a bit silly. I thought, thank the Gods she's here because she really needs educating. My apologies of course if you didn't know that the Rossetta Stone bares the same text in three different languages. (As I will say in one of my more recent blogs, I didn't know about every reference made in the Sherlock Holmes Museum either, so I should really be as aggrevated by myself as by the people in the British Museum. :D)



Let's get back to the positive side of things: the huge and amazing collection. I was thrilled to see that the museum had a huge collection of statues of Sachmet, one of my favourite goddesses in all paganism as I just think she's really beautiful. It's one of those connections I just can't explain, just like my love of Cernunnos. She has the body of a human and the head of a lioness. Nothing really triggered in my mind at this point except for excitement. Luckily they are far less known artifacts so I was able to stand in awe of them for a long time and enjoy them in their full beautiful glory.



Carrying on through the exhibition and reading almost every information board there was, I looked up and saw in the distance a ginormous roaring lion's head sticking out from around the corner. It was very impressive and not particularly Egyptian which spurred my curiosity. I slowly worked my way through the room and along the way I came across a pair of lions lying down beautifully sculpted and very impressive.





When I came to the giant lion I realised I had in fact entered the Assyrian section, hence the style being different. It really was breathtaking! Then it came to me, that was it... a werelion! I still need to figure out the exact storyline, as in name of planet, race etc. but that will all come now. I want to do the sketches of the two forms, human and lion and the bust/sculpture will be mid-transformation to show that part of the character design. The ferosity of the roar and the beautiful padded and clawed feet were just amazing and exactly what I was looking for.

Shakespeare in London Locations

Tuesday

Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey can be found across the road from the Houses of Parliament, they are both incredibly large and beautiful buildings. It cost me a wopping 16 pounds just to get into Westminster Abbey and when I discovered I wasn't even allowed to take photos I was pretty agitated. It would have cost me an extra 3 pounds 50 to get an audioguide. I understand the costs that must be involved keeping the building and interior in good condition but I was really quite pissed off so I didn't get an audioguide.



After making a dash to the loo, I took my time to look around and slowly all was forgiven as I stood in wonder at the many nooks and crannies and vast amount sculptures. When I got to Poet's Corner, a corner of the Abbey full of dedications and memorials to Britain's most celebrated Poets and Writers, I took my time and sat down to have a proper good look. The oldest part of Poet's Corner is Geoffrey Chaucer's actual tomb who was mainly known for his Canterbury Tales. One of the most noticable though (and the reason why I had payed the steep 16 pounds) was the memorial to William Shakespeare. His plaque was set into the centre of the wall with the other memorials dotted around it. These were eclipsed by the magnificance of the life-sized standing sculpture of the great man himself. I did a quick biro sketch of his face, doing as well as I could in the hustle and bustle of the tourist attraction. Later I found a postcard of the full sculpture which I will post when I'm near the scanner. (At the moment I'm busy tippy typing outside, enjoying the sun, which I'm lucky enough to say, followed me everywhere I went in London.)



When I was ready to move on I contintued to look at the rest of the Abbey which was amazing and I actually found one of the most amazing bits of sculpture I've ever seen right at the end. Unfortunately the postcard of this doesn't really do it justice (this too I will include later) but I got it anyway so I would definitely remember it. It was set inside a niche and on top of a wooden cabinet, the door of which was open. On top of the cabinet was a stone sculpture of a seated man holding his dead wife in one arm. His other arm was outstretched in a warding-off manner towards another figure. This was a robed skelletal figure of death, another stone sculpture only this was one was actually coming out of the cabinet, his robes craftfully wrapping around the open door. I just thought this sculpture was so original and inventive it really struck me and the expression on the man's face was so horrifically perfect. I know this isn't related to Shakespeare but thought I would just quickly include it here as I thought it so amazing.

The Staple Inn

This building was on my list of places to see but had slipped my mind at first. The funny thing was, after I had decided to do Shakespeare's London instead of the Shakespeare and Dickens Walk I went through my Shakespeare to see list again. I came across Staple Inn and quickly looked at the picture on the internet to refresh my memory and realised I had actually already seen it. When I got out of the Tube stop to go and find the Charles Dickens Museum I passed this building, and thought wow how amazing. On the way back to the Tube I took a photo of it. I really thought that was pretty amazing, it didn't just need to be on the list it was a really cool building anyway. The Staple Inn does not have a direct link to Shakespeare. It is on the other hand the only real example of Elizabethan half-timbering left in the centre of London. So although Shakespeare may have never been inside this building, as it was part of the wool trade, he would have known it and many others like it (most of which will have been destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666).



Wednesday

The Tour

As I have already described in full detail I passed many Shakespeare locations on this tour. See previous post to read about these.

Friday

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

This Theatre was rebuilt by the wealthy American Sam Wanamaker. In the 60s he visited London and to his great dissapointment he couldn't find the Globe Theatre anywhere as it simply wasn't there anymore. He then started a more than 20 year battle to get all of the planning permission passed before he was allowed to start building. The Theatre was rebuilt using Tudor building techniques and one of the major difficulties to get the planning permission passed was the thatched straw roof. A ban on thatched roof was put through in the 17th century after the Great Fire, being one of the causes of the fire spreading so quickly. It is now a sight to behold with it's beautiful stitching on the top, a British tradition opposed to the Dutch tiling placed on top. Building started towards the end of the 80s and tragically Mr Wanamaker died three years before completion in the early new millenium. As I've said in my previous post it was amazing to see the theatre and I would very much like to see a production there one day, it must be absolutely amazing as it is one of the few places where they still put on the plays in the origianl costume styles. They also do a lot of them as full male productions obviously keeping to the traditions of the time. As an experiment and for a bit of fun they have also done an all female production. They are this year celebrating Shakespeare by organizing each play to be performed in a different language all over the world. Troilus and Cressida was recently put on in New Zealand in Maori, which a friend of ours happened to see and said was very good. The only thing that is missing from the Globe is that feeling that you get when you know that something of historical significance happened somewhere. It's purely psychological of course but you don't walk in and think wow Shakespeare actually walked these planks, unlike in the Roman Baths in Bath, England where you can practically here the nails in the Roman sandals clinking against the well worn stone flooring. Apart from this very small, and to be honest, unimportant detail, the Globe is amazing. It left me completely inspired, artisically but also by what people can achieve if they fight long and hard for what they want and believe in. I could say so much more about the Globe put I think I might as well start writing a book if I did that so I will stop there.

Southwark Cathedral

Just up the Thames from the Globe is the Southwark Cathedral. The entrance is free but they do ask for you to pay 2 pounds 50 for a ticket to take photos, fair enough. Inside the cathedral are tributes to many different people including William Shakespeare. Built into the wall is a full-sized reclining statue of William Shakespeare.



Above him is a stain-glassed window, based on his comedies and tragedies. I really love stain glassed windows and have so many photos of them so this was a real treat.







Middle Temple Hall

The original interior of this building still all exists, tragically it is not open to the public as I believe it is part of the courtroom buildings. In 1601 Shakepeare's Twelfth Night was performed here and this is where Elizabeth I herself saw it performed. The outside is still a very beautiful building here though, but it was a real shame I couldn't go in. This building is in the Temple district very near the well known Temple Church, a church connected to the Knight's Templar. Unfortunately when I got there they had just closed to the public for a service and wouldn't be opening for another two hours. Ah well it will be there next time.



Saturday

V&A

The Victoria and Albert is an amazing museum holding an array of exhibits on the British History and Culture but also from the rest of the world. On my second visit here (I also went here on Friday) I specifically went to the performance section as I heard there was a certain item there (I'll get back to this later). There were quite a few Shakespearean linked items in this section as well. A skull used in one of the plays, a headdress based on Hamlet, quite a few very beautifully made set designs for the plays (unfortunately none of these photos worked as the lighting was very dim and the glass cases limiting) and to top it off a copy of one of the original First Folio, mentioned earlier in my Shakespeare (and Dickens) Walk post. It's an amazing museum and discovering these artifacts was a great bonus. More on the V&A in my later post "Brief Overview of other things I visited on my trip".





These were the Shakespeare locations I visited. I tried looking for the George Inn and the Mitre Tavern, both places that Shakespeare used to go to, I looked and looked but I just couldn't find them. Ah well, that's life.


TIME COUNT:
Numerous Hours!!! No idea how long as it was so scattered and too much fun to be counting the minutes!!! :D

Shakespeare's Globe and Meeting Meghan

On the Friday, I headed off to the Globe to have my meeting/talk with Meghan. I arrived quite early and as Meghan was no where to be found, I took the time to have a good look around at the shop to see if any extra questions sprang to mind. I was really quite nervous at this stage not knowing what to expect.

I returned to the front desk at 11:00, the time that Meghan would be expecting me and this time she was reached. While I was looking at a brochure on the in construction covered (as in with a full roof apposed to the open-to-the-elements Globe) theatre they are building, Meghan snuck up behind me and said, "You must be Imogen." I turned and saw a nice young lady with short hair in jeans and t-shirt, I was relieved. I started to introduce myself and shook her hand to which she said, "Oh good strong handshake, if you were coming for a job I'd hire you," which set us both off laughing. I no longer felt nervous at all. She continued by looking around dodging her gaze through the tourists and said, "Now you're going to love this, because the quietest spot for us to talk is probably in the theatre." And off she strode, out through the door towards the theatre. She flung open the main door, not the side door through which the tourists were entering and there it was. I was was stunned by the theatre's brilliance and the quiet haven that the walls created even though the hustle and bustle of London was right outside.

We headed up the stairs and and sat at the back of the theatre and started to chat. It wasn't at all as I had expected. I thought I would have been lead into a small office, forced to sit opposite each other and have to commense a rather forced and awquard conversation, but this was... well it was just so much fun!!! Now that I have explained the situation I suppose I should say what I learnt about the theatre.

I found it was good having had the time to look at the shop. Some of my questions were already answered in a way but this gave me the chance to reformulate and ask other more specific questions with a higher benificial rate. I started off by asking what kind of designers she generally targeted when looking for new designs which is when I discovered that she in fact designed the main line so I really had contacted the right person.

The majority of the products in the shop are their own products with mainly the books and the odd children's toy outsourced. I saw in the shop that they had prop skulls and even these Meghan said weren't really outsources. They are hand moulded and painted by the prop company that makes their own props so this makes them pretty much their own as well. When I've got the spare money I would love to get one, they were so cool. Meghan said the major purchasers of the skulls were middle-aged men. The fact that they have so many of their own products works very positively. When you go somewhere special you want something to remember the place and nothing is more frustrating than seeing cheap tat that you saw at the other three museums you visited earlier in the week.

The main audience, and hence target market, coming through the tour and shop are actually school children. Around this period, Meghan said mainly French. The products tend to be aimed at people in their young twenties and not nessesarily with an interest in Shakespeare. Many people in the shop have a quick browse so the product has to have a 10 second grabbing attraction, so they have to be more visually attractive than just a bit of text on a t-shirt. The age and modern feel to the products is very important she said. She gets a thousand designs sent to her every year from people saying this is what the shop is missing. Most of them assume the Globe is targeted at old fashioned people who know absolutely everything and anything about Shakespeare. 'That's just so wrong,' she said, most people haven't got a clue when they send stuff to the Globe. An example was a range of posters which I thought were quite cool. They each show a photo taken during a performace in the background and an illustrated initial over the top in the foreground. These hadn't sold well at all and I saw they had been marked down to a pound each. Most people not knowing anything about Shakespeare had looked at them quickly and thought they don't have the initial of my name and walked on, not realising it was the initial of the play that it represented. I thought them very obvious and clear but clearly the general audience didn't.

Most of their ranges are based on individual plays that have been on in the season. At the beginning of the new season a new range is brought out, sometimes numerous ranges per year. Generally there's never just a t-shirt design. The t-shirts cost 20 pounds and a lot of people think they haven't got enough money to buy a t-shirt and want smaller items, even if they end up spending 20 pounds in the long run (which is exactly what I ended up doing funnily enough). When Meghan has got a new design she makes up a A3 display sheet with the tshirt design and some rough photoshopped ideas of the other products in the range to show the head for approval. She added that these wouldn't necessarily be the final designs but enough to show that the idea could work over a range and not just a t-shirt. Other products include: mugs, badges, bookmarks, bags, notepads, keyrings etc. The original design is generally repeated on most of the things and few extra small things are added for the badges and bookmarks. The materials tend to differ between the lines depending on the designs and atmospheres of the plays. Hamlet for example had a bookmark printed on leather, while A Midsummer Night's Dream had the bookmark design sewn onto silk. Because of these range based products I will be doing the same (A3 presentation sheet) with my A Midsummer Night's Dream designs.

Before leaving for London I re-read A Midsummer Night's Dream so I could go there and enter the project with the play fresh in my mind. A particular scene had struck me as visually brilliant and when I went into the shop I saw that it was this scene they had used for the bookmark. I told Meghan this and she agreed that this would be a brilliant part of the play to base the designs on. She said although it's magical it's also a bit of a darker scene. The macabre sells well she said. Our top selling line is the Macbeth line, they're splattered in blood baring the quote, "Out damned spot, out I say!" The t-shirt shows the blood spray that would actually be caused by a slit throat she told me with excitement afterwards while looking around in the shop together. It outsells the second most popular line twice, the second most popular line being a Hamlet line, which also has a darker and more gothic feel to it.

All of the product ranges that were based on the individual plays had quotes on them, which she said was not essential. She did say it was an absolute must to have the title of the play on the products. This was in the hope that whoever bought it and hadn't necessarily read it would come across the product later in life and think, 'Hey I think I'll read that." I would have to agree having seen the crowds that went through the theatre.

Meghan does not design all of the product lines. When looking for new talent she tends to go to graduation exhibitions and other places where whe can see the work first hand and contacts them via that. There was no point looking on the internet she said, it's so vast and you don't tend to find what you're looking for. I told her how hard I had found it to find interesting Shakespeare related products on the internet, but that I had managed to find Elizabeth. That's when she said that she had found Elizabeth via a graduation exhibition, a bonus and coincidence that they know each other.

When we were in the shop we carried on talking. She had sent me an email before I came in reference to my first brief I had written and had mentioned a vast amount of printing techniques. I said to her honestly that I had been a bit shocked and hadn't known the majority of them. I said my school's great for teaching you to look at your own work but when it comes to the real world and stuff we really need to know, they're actually a bit crap. She said that was where she had an advantage to a lot of designers as she comes from a printing based background, she knows exactly what can and can't be done. She told me about the screenprinting machines they use to print their fabric based items. It's a screen table with 8 hoses for the colours, so there's a limitation of 8 colours and they're still all printed by hand. On the odd one you can see a fault but all round they are pretty bloody good. I was actually surprised that they were all screenprinted because they were so detailed in some designs and well printed. She also told me in which order things had been printed, for example a bag for Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. This had had black printed over the top of silver on a black bag so the overlaying layers created a metallic black which was really effective (so effective I've got one hanging in my room now). It was good having done the printing minor and having done so much screenprinting. I was at least able to say that I had played around with green and gold over the top of each other and things like that and that it was a lot of fun to see the results. She said the experimentation with the colour layers really did make the products more interesting. As these are the printing techniques the Globe uses I will also be basing my designs on these techniques to keep it as real as possible. The mug designs are digitally printed onto special transfers and then put on the mugs.

We chatted about loads of other things too such as the theatre in general. I asked her if anything odd had happened when they were filming for Doctor Who. (In the third series the Doctor and his companion go back in time to meet Shakespeare. A group of three witches, which are in fact alien Carionites, are trying to let through the aliens from their planet to Earth. The shape and construction of the Globe work as a magical figure and when the magic words are said in the right spot the gateway would be opened.) She said that nothing odd happened but it was hilarious and a lot of fun as the theatre and all other linked buildings were filled with straw. She remembered one time getting into the lift and the TARDIS being in there, to her dissapointment there was nothing in the TARDIS. She told me lots of general information about the Globe which I won't bother typing out here as the post is already quite massive. She did say though that the Globe was not in it's original location as a listed building now stands in the original location which naturally can't be touched. I said, oh that's why the Doctor Who magic words didn't work, the theatre's in the wrong spot, which made her laugh. I mention this as it just really showed how relaxed the talk was, it was so much fun, a real highlight of the trip. It's left me really buzzing and excited to start on the making of the product designs.

In my excitement I actually forgot to take photos inside the theatre, oops. I've got a guidebook of the theatre and obviously there are images on the internet I can use for reference. If I need more I'll send Meghan an email to ask her if she could send me some. I shall post some more pictures of the Theatre and their products in my research posts very soon.


TIME COUNT:
1 1/2 - 2 Hours talking to Meghan in the Theatre and Shop