Shows

I had a couple more exhibition-heavy days a couple of weeks ago. Swung by the Brighton Ill. & GD London private view at Rochelle School in the East End. They made very good use of the space: it's pretty cavernous and spread over two floors, but they managed to fill the walls, which I found impressive. Good open rooms and well-lit also, especially on the bottom floor.

I also made a morning visit to New Designers in Islington, to check out my friend Chris Parsons' graduation exhibit. He's a product designer and belt-wearer and also my old running buddy. We wandered around and had a good look at the product design shows- some really good new creations, and some really weird ones too. Didn't have the time to look around much of the Illustration stuff though.

I would also recommend the the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery. This wasn't my favourite year, but it's always ace. And the National Gallery's Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries exhibtition was really good too. Equipped with the accompanying leaflet and its glossary of obscure art restoration terms, it was fascinating to nose at the broad range of paintings and read their stories, trying to guess the fakes from the real deal. It made me want to be an art restorer a little bit. And the Portrait Award always makes me want to run home and paint portraits.