Art for art's sake...

So it's official.  I'm an Art School Mouse.  I packed my pencil case and sketch pads and arrived for my first tutorial, bright and early on Monday morning. I got myself a coffee and sat in the cafe area, musing on my new life and what it might offer.

Ooh I was nervous.  My whiskers were twitching uncontrollably, my paws were a bit clammy. My fur kept sticking up, no matter how many times I put a bit of lick on it and stuck it down again...

You have to think about where to sit when you enter a room.  All the new mice were sitting clustered together at the back of the lecture room, I decided to be brave and sit at the front.  A good idea, until half way through the presentation when I really needed a wee (I blame the coffee) and had to boldly walk past the projector screen twice once there and once back.  Never mind.  I'm a big, grown up Mouse I kept telling myself (I'm not really, I'm very small as you know, but I pretend sometimes).

The presentation basically said:-

'Welcome to the University.  If you log onto the Student Mouse area you will find everything you need to know.  If you can't log on then you will have to try to find someone to help you.  If you don't read what's there you won't know.  If you don't do your work you will fail. If you want to WIN you can basically say goodbye to sleep or any kind of life.  Now.'

Well I felt a bit shaky after that, so on with the first task.

'The first task is to create a graphic novel.  You have one hour to draw up 10 panels and then you must choose 3 and convert them into digital images using Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.  You must then submit them in a blog (at last - one word I understood - blogs I can do!).

Blimey.  So we watch a film.  Some thing about Apes and bones and space ships.  It doesn't last long but we have to watch it a lot of times and then draw it.

I don't know about you, but I like drawing birds and butterflies and flowers and pretty things. I don't draw apes particularly.  Or at all.  But that's it, that's what I have to do.  After an hour of attempting I have a few scribbles that look marginally like hairy spiders that have had all their legs pulled off.  Time to get them onto the computers.

The computer bit is taught by someone almost as young as my small boss, Edie and he WHIZZES through things in a very fast manner. My small brain is trying to keep up. What is this RGB CKMY business Dpi .tiff kind of file we're supposed to create? you have to what? layer what? Three hours later my brain is buzzing and there is smoke coming out of my paw tips as I try to keep up.  On the screen there is a blob.  This is going to be a very steep learning curve.

I manage to borrow a computer with the special software on it and I'm allowed to take it home as long as I sign a clause saying that if anything happens to it they can have my skin to make into a small rug in return.  I'm not happy about that but needs must.  At home I tend to my small boss, Edie, and then stay up for half of the night looking at bleeds and saturation and fill and I manage to do something good (draw over my actual squiggle ape with a furry type effect) and then something bad (realise that I have cut my mountains wrongly - keep up) and then something I don't understand which results in the whole sky turning orange and covering over the 5 suns that are shining overhead (it's art!).  I console myself with the fact that I have 3 more days until submission.  Yes, three more whole days with only 2 of those taken up with more lectures.  I refer to the bit in the electronic handbook where it says you don't have to sleep and I sigh...

Wednesday is drawing day - a bit of a cliche - sit opposite someone and draw them. This is quite enjoyable in that it's familiar. I'm not sure about the person drawing me who seems to be taking a very abstract approach to it.  I'm sure that my eyes are not both on the same side of my face, but I may be wrong.  At the end of the lesson we are told that next week we need to bring in 10 sheets of large paper.  And a stick.  Okay.

Thursday - another lecture - this time a different person tells us that we must work hard even just to scrape a course pass and that to get a good grade we must sign over all rights to sleep, rest and eating breaks unless any of them can be multi-tasked into a five minute period, preferably in the library whilst conducting research - only we would have to leave out the eating bit because of crumbs and the sleeping bit because of snoring.  We are then told that we have to produce an A0 sized black and white poster of ourselves and embellish it with paint or materials or art of any kind and bring it in for next weeks lesson.  Right.

The first problem here is how to get a photograph taken. The photo tech's tell us not to cheat and use any kind of mobile phone device as THEY WILL KNOW!  The second is composition - what the heck to do on this photo? In the end I decide to whizz down the hill on my scooter and get Mr. Mouse to take the photo.  I think this will demonstrate my maturity.  

I dress carefully in a T-Shirt - I plan to stick materials over my fur on the photo and didn't want a bulky coat to make me look like anything less than a svelte Mouse, and wellies - the hight of style and I zoom down the road.  Mr. Mouse points his camera at me and clicks away.  'How many shots did you get?' I ask him. 'None. I'm using the wrong lens'.

This goes on for some time.  I do run after run and my expression gets more terrified as each time, the brakes take a little longer to apply and make a loud screeching noise.  Finally we have the shot - now to get it printed.

I call the University Print Bureau: 'Hello, if I bring you the file today when can you print it?'
'Tuesday.'
'Tuesday? But it's Friday!'
'Yes.  Two day turnaround. Two working days.'
'But that means I won't get it until Tuesday and I'm in lectures all day Wednesday and I have to hand it in on Thursday! When am I supposed to decorate it?'
'Welcome to University'. Click.

I am stunned. I ring a professional printing company who assure me that they can print it in twenty minutes for the princely sum of three quid.  Deal.

So, one way or another, I have the print and I have submitted the first assignment and it's only 10pm on Friday night - HA! take THAT 'sleep is optional' manual.  I'm hoping that this rather heavy first week schedule only feels that way because of the steep learning path that I am on and that the lecturers are front loading us with a big bulk of work now to get us into it, somewhat in the manner of my junior school teacher lining us up at the local swimming baths and pushing us in, one by one, to teach us to swim (assuming we didn't drown).  

And I'm hoping that the weeks ahead give me time to do what I love and use my paints and inks rather than sticking stickers onto a picture of myself.  

In the meantime I'm having a well deserved sherry.

Artfully yours,
Mouse xx