Our second and third year BA(Hons) Illustration students recently enjoyed a study visit to snowy Bristol. The focus of the trip included studio visits to two artist/illustration studios; Hamilton House and The Island.
The students enjoyed tours of both venues, at Hamilton House they met with practicing illustrators including Lara Hawthorne, Paula Bowles and Freya Hartas who spoke with the students about their experiences as illustrators since graduating. At The Island studios, students met with collective ‘Sad Ghost Club‘, a small team working hard to make comics, apparel and merchandise to spread positive awareness of mental health.
Students also had presentations from Lara Hawthorne, Joe Roberts and Laurie Stansfield, who have been working together to develop a mentoring scheme called ‘CAP’ which involves meeting up regularly to support one another with business, including developing projects and setting schedules. 
Falmouth alumni Dave Bain, who graduated from BA(Hons) Illustration in 2006 coordinated all the activities that students participated in whilst visiting Bristol. Dave also gave students a presentation about his own experiences since graduating. As well as being a successful illustrator, Dave is responsible for setting up illustration studios in Hamilton House and an illustration collective ‘Drawn In Bristol‘, formed in 2011 which supports and profiles Bristol based illustrators.
Before travelling to Bristol, students were given a brief to work too, focusing on the themes of ‘regeneration and collaboration’ and the culmination of their primary research was to formulate visual outputs which were exhibited in the SPACE (Sound-Performance-Art-Community-Engagement) Gallery.
Prior to the exhibition Private View, Tom Newell of Limbic Cinema, provided workshops with the students; Tom digitized drawings from student’s sketchbooks and mapped and projected these onto plinths and walls – he also taught students how to do the same and the outcome was several visual collages projected onto 2D and 3D spaces.
For the exhibition, students created a range of work in response to the brief, from 3D objects, to customised shirts, a video and a 3D mobile.
Falmouth School of Art 