One and Other

Recent MA Children's Book Illustration graduate Maria Stuart was selected for Anthony Gormley's fourth plinth project One And Other in Trafalgar Square on Sunday 16th August.
You can see more details of the plinth project as well as live coverage of the plinth via the title link which shows Maria's time on the plinth. As she says in her profile:

I'm not a performance artist so I haven't been able to meet the demands for my hour to be interesting to watch or 'entertaining' (quite a lot of pressure around that one). But I knew from the start that I would be drawing while I was up there just wasn't sure why or what to do. As a children's book illustrator it finally dawned on me that obviously I should create an illustrated book of the journey to the plinth culiminating with images that I have made during the hour I'm there.

Thomas Bewick (1753-1828)

A bit of light Summer reading, have just finished reading the history of Thomas Bewick wood engraver and artist by Jenny Uglow, Not too much insight into his process but an interesting read nevertheless. He is definitely a forerunner of the illustration discipline we see today- and strangely enough many of the business issues sound uncomfortably familiar!
I was interested in the lengths he went to to get the correct reference (walking for three days to draw a bull!?) he could draw very well indeed.
I enjoyed the book, I found it interesting that he did any old job from designing flyers for events to illustrating the first popular natural history books. He sounded like a nice down to earth chap as well.