26 Hours in Newcastle For £70 ...

The first sign of Newcastle from the coach was the Angel of the North, it was pretty eye-catching, and possibly a lot smaller than I expected, but at least I can say I’ve seen it now. Then further on was the River Tyne, and the many bridges, a mix of traditional and contemporary structures... quite a beautiful sight, and a great photo opportunity. 

First few steps off the bus were cold, windy, and shite, I’ve packed the wrong wardrobe for this..!!!

The start of the (ridiculously short) trip was a visit to the Baltic, my highlights were the Steve McQueen room, 'Pursuit', it was a really mad experience, a totally dark room, lined with mirrors, and a shining reflection type image projected into the centre of a room. This along with an odd sound effect just made you wonder what the hell it was all about. It was quite funny trying to navigate around it all, at one point me and Chris could see the other side of the room, so started walking rather cautiously across, I then clicked where we were, and Chris said, ‘Oh look, there’s some people over there’, I then tried not to laugh too much as I pointed out to her it was us walking towards a mirror.

The second of McQueen’s installments was a film of a horse lying in a field, either dead or sleeping, not entirely sure. But I didn’t really know what to make of it, and it started making me feel quite uncomfortable, so I didn’t stay to find out what happened.

The work of Yoshitomo Nara & Graf, included some funky houses, it was a nice idea, with a very child like feel to it all - I liked the whole thing, but I didn’t find it jaw dropping or overly exciting.

I loved the shop, I can stand for hours looking through art books of designers, illustrators, photographers. I could have spent a hell of a lot of money on a small selection of them, but unfortunately the student loans company doesn’t provide that extra bit of pocket money to cover the small fortune that they cost. 

Over the past year i’ve developed an interest in fashion illustration and the huge range of styles that different illustrators have picked up. I found a few books and took a quick flick through them noting down any illustrators that caught my eye. 

These included Francois Berthoud, Mode 2, Stina Persson, Sophie Toulouse, I love Dust, Vassilis Gogtzilas...

Below is 2 of Stina Persson's works; from the 'Watercolour' and the 'Edgy' Collections. Followed by 2 advertisements of I Love Dust, for Pepsi and Nike.