SAW! Part One

This is a post about the school I came here to go to - SAW, the Sequential Artists' Workshop. But first, here is a picture of me outside school with my wonderful bike! 

Going native - please note lanyard with keys, and GATORS T-SHIRT!!! Important to represent, while I'm here.

For the last few years, I've had a growing feeling of wanting to make a change and have some kind of adventure - I knew I'd like to live somewhere different, and put myself into a new environment, but wasn't sure how or where. I considered applying for the Maison des auteurs in Angoulême in France (still something I'm interested in down the line) and also I'd love to one day spend a month in Santa Fe at the Anthony Ryder Studio. But then my friend Tom told me about SAW, and things came together for me from there.

Junk everywhere! SAW shares its space with a large junkyard, and a business which seems to make electrical things of some kind - it's mysterious, but you pass through their offices to go to the loo - I'll find out one of these days what it is they do.

SAW was founded by the cartoonist Tom Hart in 2011. Tom is a prolific cartoonist and was an instructor at the School of Visual Arts in New York for 10 years. I took a couple of his online courses, read his book "Rosalie Lightning" and signed up for his e-book and emails, and I really liked everything he was putting out. The ethos of the school was appealing too - community-based, small, with an emphasis on storytelling and drawing. I've wanted to study drawing in the US before now, but the costs have always been prohibitive - SAW keeps tuition fees low and affordable, and you pay on a sliding scale of what you can afford. So it seemed a good fit for an adventure - it was a leap of faith from there. 

I'd never been to Florida but was interested in coming to the US again, and seeing if the connection I felt from my years spent in California would still exist - though of course they are very different states. Florida appealed because of the promise of an outdoors, weirder life, one I hoped would be filled with different animals and plants - which it certainly is! There are lizards EVERYWHERE here - massive tick for me. (Speaking of which, no ticks yet, thank god! Although when I picked up the washing-up sponge last night a GIANT cockroach crawled over the other side of it - too grim. I just can't make friends with those repulsive f*&kers.)

There's definitely a comic story in here!

We have a regular weekly schedule here - Monday is Storytelling with Tom, Tuesdays are Comics History (last week was Hogarth so I felt relatively orientated - a feeling that will inevitably disappear as we get into 20th century comics!), Wednesdays are Traditional Drawing and Fridays are Figure Drawing. Most classes are three hours a day (plus homework), which gives a nice structure, while still leaving time for everything else.

There are eleven of us students; I'm the winner of come-from-furthest-away, and the oldest - most of my classmates are under 30. The other day I learned about XD (don't ask me, I didn't really understand) and scene haircuts. I'd like to say I play up my Englishness and confusion about these things on purpose, but I really am at sea. We did karaoke last week and I sang I Drove All Night - my classmates said afterwards they'd not known the song OR Roy Orbison - a brave new world, my friends! They are a friendly and talented group - I'm looking forward to seeing us all develop our work over this year.

The entrance to SAW - hiding behind this container... do you dare??

First view on coming in through the front door.

I'll post more about the school soon! xxx