"Success is when preparation & planning meet opportunity & guts!"

Last week I attended two sessions as part of the LCF First Move programme. First Move is for selected students to give you an extra push to network with industry and basically increase your industry contact in final year. The sessions were with Kubi Springer, founder of Sisterhood TV which is "a multimedia company dedicated to celebrating and inspiring today's global women who are: Bold, Beautiful & Empowered - women who dare to reach their goals and achieve!"

The Sessions were a two part workshop called "I am my brand" with Kubi - a bit of a mouthy PR guru who's run marketing campaigns for L'Oreal, Nike, MTV, Puff Daddy and was the youngest head of Marketing and Brand Development for the MOBO's at just 26. What was great about Kubi and the sessions was that it cut the crap and just got down to the nitty gritty of what you need to do to survive and actually flourish in what is a really competitive industry. We practised networking, looked at all aspects of how to successfully and seamlessly communicate (be it CV, presenting yourself, your portfolio/website..) and looked at how you might go about actually making some money. I thought the sessions were great and Kubi made it funny, interesting and actually really useful.

IOMmmmmmm

So I went to the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining last week which was exciting and inspirational. The institute holds both a reference library and library of physical material samples which I and a friend were very kindly allowed into, and where you can look at and touch materials ("but wash your hands if you touch any goos!"). Apart from finding all sorts of exciting materials there was a whole host of sample products including an F1 carbon fibre nose cone, kevlar army jacket, the new D30 intelligent cushioning point ballet shoe and all sorts of other delights. I left feeling mega inspired, with a whole host of new project ideas and feeling really grateful to have visited the resources and very helpful IOM3 technical advisor (many thanks!).

dust off those pencils

So the time for faffing over research has come to an end and I'm putting pen to paper for my collection. My drawing skills are a wee bit rusty and not really showing what I need them to. So! following some hopelessly scribbly sketching I've decided to ease myself in with a book I'd been putting off doing for a while..perspective drawing. Circa 1950 something it has some excellent retro illustrations - onwards to learning 3 point perspective...