This and That Thursday

I had wanted to keep a trip journal of Enders Island. An amazing trip journal like the one Nan did for her trip to San Francisco. (Hint, hint) I find it hard to work on arty things when I'm away. I did manage the title page in a Strathmore Visual Journal (8 x 5.5) This image of the chapel tower was carved on the sign outside Angell Hall where the studios are located.

I made some notes during the week of thoughts and impressions. I already blogged about the class in Manuscript Illumination

Even though I'll be working in this journal after I get home, I decided to keep it simple. Just a few illustrations doodles and my thoughts. If I used mixed media stuff like embellishments or painted pages, I'd end up making a Holy Grail of this project and never get it done. Media used is a Staedtler pigment liner, watercolor pencils, and colored pencils.

Enders Island is off another island called Mason's Island. I have a very poor sense of direction so even with the GPS I still managed to get lost. In all fairness not entirely my fault as Madge's (short for Magellan and the name we gave to the GPS) were a little ambiguous. She meant the road curved slightly to the left take a right. Not make a full left turn. I had left plenty of time to get lost and arrive on time. We had to check in at 4:30 PM.

So I made it to the land of Hic Sunt Draconis (Here There Be Dragons) To a Bostonian, anything beyond the outskirts of the city belongs in the dragon realm. Boston isn't called the Hub because the city is laid out in a spoke and wheel pattern. It's the Hub because the city is the Hub of the Universe.

I was amused to find I was assigned to Room Number 6 which reminded me of 1/3 of 666 or the 1960s television show The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan. He was a spy, turned in his resignation, and was kidnapped and taken to an unknown location called The Village where he was assigned a bungalow, number 6. Residents of the Village didn't go by names but by their bungalow numbers. In the Village the Number 2 man in charge kept trying to interrogate 6 to find out why he resigned.

The rooms in the dormitory are named after the apostles of Christ. My room was St. Bartholomew. Most of these dudes had horrible deaths. Bartholomew had his skin flayed off and was beheaded. His feast day is celebrated on 24. August. Because of the manner of his death, he is the patron saint of tanners, bookbinders, leatherworkers, and tailors.

Because the class was so large (10 student plus the instructor) we had to take our meals in the large dining room instead of in the cozy back porch/sun room in the main house. Students for this class came from Ohio, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Montana. The instructor is from Florida

The dorm rooms are quite tiny even though there are two beds, there's not really enough room to move around. I upgraded to a private room. Even though I brought my own pillow, I had a hard time falling asleep. It felt like I was sleeping on a frozen bags of peas, and I could feel each and every one of them.  It also didn't help that just as I was settling down to sleep, someone shot off fireworks. 🎆BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!