About six weeks ago, I put some ads up in art shop noticeboards hoping to find people to draw maps. And happily a reply from Steve from Malta popped up.
I met him the other day and he drew this lovely map of Malta.
I took a trip to Kilburn to the Queens Arms pub, which has recently become a centre for Kosovars and Albanians in London.
There, I met Baki and Ladi who drew their maps of Kosovo and Albania for me.
In search of people to draw maps, I recently went to 72 Queensborough Terrace, a Latvian guesthouse and bar. There I met Gaļis who drew this map.
I went recently to see an exhibition of Hungarian photography at the Royal Academy. The exhibition is called Eyewitness (open until 2nd October), a very appropriate name - it shows how the history of Hungarian photography acts as a witness to many of the most significant best/worst historical moments throughout the 20th century.
Artistic trends such as Bauhaus and abstraction are reflected in the photography, as well as giving a chronicle of how photography developed from amateur photo-players to professional fashion and journalism.
Much of the photography was incredibly angular, shooting at acute and implausible angles. Whereas now we can zoom in and out of the world at the click of a button, then this must have felt revolutionary.
There were lots of photographs to enjoy, here are just some of my favourites.
This photo by Robert Capa shows a French woman who had a baby with a German soldier during World War 2 being led through the streets of Chartres. The photo below - also by Robert Capa - shows the destruction of Budapest's Elisabeth Bridge.
The photo below - Harvest by Erno Vadas - shows the beginning of abstract patterns and shapes.
Cornell Capa's image of Winchester College shows implausible angles.
To which Lazlo Maholy-Nagy's image from Berlin's TV Tower adds abstract shapes.
Martin Munkácsi's fashion image from Harper's Bazaar
Probably my favourite image: Procession by Erno Vadas
And finally, this book cover by Gyorgy Lorinczy shows how many Hungarian photographs found an excellent subject in the skyscraper and concrete world of New York.
On a bus to somewhere else a few weeks ago, I noticed a closed shop with a Macedonian flag in its sign. I made a mental note to return in search of someone from Macedonia.
When I did go back, I found a very small shop selling Macedonian food and whatnot, and a man watching the charts from Macedonia on TV (Kylie Minogue was performing Get Outta My Way - fancy that.)
The man (he didn't tell me his name) did not speak English. Somehow I convinced him to draw a map of Macedonia for me. And then when he folded it up and looked like he was going to keep it, I convinced him to give it to me.
So here it is, showing Makedonia's place in the Balkans.
At the weekend, I went to Turkish Fest which was held near London Bridge.
It was a jolly celebration of all things Turkish, including stalls selling watermelon, kebabs, tourism, as well as a stage with interesting musical acts. As I was there, everyone stood to sing the Turkish national anthem.
I stepped up to the London Turkish Film Festival, where I met Burce. I asked her to draw a map of Turkey.
Recently, I met Miloš from Montenegro and he drew me a map.
I was at Café Monte, a cafe-bar in Fulham with a Montenegrin flavour. The food was contintental, the waitress was Romanian, but happily, having had a word with her, she called over her colleague Miloš, who drew this map:
I collected these maps two years ago, but never put them online.
The first was collected at a Thailand festival in Greenwich Park (where I saw the winner of Thailand's Got Talent performing). 15 people drew their maps of Southeast Asia, so thanks to Kris, Rose, Kirsty, Emma-Louise, Hita, Jem and Catherine from the UK, Rose, Yuttakorn, Annie and Chookiat from Thailand, Chris and Denny from New Zealand, Pepper from the Philippines and Alex from Italy.
Sometime later, I went to the New European Village festival at Southbank to ask for maps of Europe. Thanks to the 11 people who drew a map: Joe, Zimbab and Janine from Germany, OQ a 'secret Turk', Sophie and Celine from France, Poppy from Greece, Baz from Belgium, JK from England, Claudia and Luisa from Colombia.
I went this weekend to Take A Closer Look, a series of drawing activities arranged by the Big Draw for the City of London Festival.
That's a long sentence to say: drawing fun in the city. It was ace. Combining a bit of wandering around the city, a bit of looking at architecture and buildings, a bit of drawing and a bit of sketching, it was a superb afternoon's entertainment.
Here are some pictures.
A bus on which you could draw things about London. I drew my own version of The Pinnacle, and an elephant and a castle on their London map.
I went to the end-of-year student show at the RCA last week.
I was immediately annoyed by the huge signs everywhere saying I couldn't take a photograph. How are people expected to see the students' work without that?
However, I liked a lot of what I saw, and happily some of it is online (but also some of it is not - what is this, 1992?).
So, big likes to:
Anne-Kathrin Schuhmann's night-time convenience stores (reminded me of these)
It's been a while (2 years) since I went collecting continent maps at London festivals. I've decided I want to collect the world, so this weekend I went in search of North America.
Eleven people drew maps, and here they are all over-laid.
The end of me asking Europeans to 'draw-your-country' is inching ever closer. Only 15 countries remain and, although they're elusive, I'm as keen as ever.
Excitingly, at a party this weekend, I met two Bulgarians, Elena and Irina. I asked Irina, an architect, to draw Bulgaria.
There's a group on flickr called The Design Disease. I'm a member. The name's not the most pleasant, but it refers to how design runs through your veins.
On the group founder's blog, he gives an idea about taking photos of numbers from 1 to 100. That was enough to give me an idea, so I set about finding numbers.
It's taken about 4 years, off and on, but here we are.
I've had a map of Norway in my 'drawing Europe's countries' project for a few years. But I'm not quite sure that it's Norway (it could be an upside down Finland...). This is it:
on my bookshelf for about 7 years. It's one of those books you read with lots of things to do, but that you never actually get around to doing.