During the first week of October, 38 students and four members of staff from the Illustration BA course spent a week of intensive drawing in Porto, northern Portugal. As can be seen from the photograph, we were very lucky with the weather, but here any similarity to a 'holiday' ends. Working from 9am to 6pm, and then returning to the hotel for discussion of the day's images means everyone ends up exhausted, exhilarated and inspired.

A gently decaying town, Porto makes a wonderful location for sketchbook and reportage work. Steep alleys, washing hanging from balconies, three-legged dogs, old ladies sitting in doorways, the sound of canaries and Fado wafting from open windows. Locations visited included the Douro river, a port lodge in Gaia, the bird and flower markets and a tram trip to the mouth of the river, where local fishermen still repair their nets by hand.

Students worked hard, filling sketchbooks with notational drawings, colour notes, overheard conversations and personal observations. These form the basis for a series of projects run back in the Cambridge studios, which include typographic responses, sequential narratives and a toy theatre and puppet project.

This trip was generously subsidised by the Sky Trust and The Good Old Drawing Project, which made it affordable for all students who wanted to go. Many thanks to both organisations for their continuing support.

We look forward to having an exhibition of the sketchbooks produced on the trip in the Ruskin Gallery in the New Year.

For more information please contact Chris Draper, Pathway Leader Illustration BA (Hons).

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