Illustration Master Class 2012 - Day 0

It is finally that time, time to cover the ups and downs of my trip to the Illustration Master Class this year. As you should already be aware from my last couple posts I got very ill after arriving in Amherst and proceeded to end up on my back in the dorms for the remainder of IMC. I tried my best and hardest to not have things turn out that way but in the end I had to give up because I just did not have the strength to do otherwise. I did however make it to a couple things and I was able to get some pictures of the goings on of IMC 2012. I will do my best to make this all interesting and the days I was completely bed ridden will all get lumped together to make things move a little more smoothly.

As with last year we will kick things off with Day 0 - the Friday before IMC officially starts. This is the day everyone arrives, checks in, gets settled, and otherwise gets charged up for the week ahead. As will last year, I planned that part of that day was to be spent finishing my drive north from Florida. I was leaving just outside of Washington DC at around 8am and I should, even under the rockiest of conditions be arriving in Amherst around 3-4 pm. My day was to get a lot more rocky then I had ever imagined...

Beautiful Baltimore. Home to John Waters and Frank Zappa (more on this later).

From my travels up and down the east coast I know a lot about Delaware... like it costs $4 to drive into Delaware and a short time later it cost $4 to drive out of Delaware. 

 There's my problem, right THERE.

I'm BAT CAR. Little did I know that BAT CAR was heading to IMC too. Also, little did I know that apparently I was traveling at a speed MUCH slower then the speed limit. How else could BAT CAR fly past me and disappear on the horizon.

I saw a lot of this in New Jersey... the underside of things under construction while traffic was not moving.

Also say a lot of things in New Jersey that Godzilla would like to smash.

 Then this happened. You are looking at 4 hours of waiting. Mind you, there was some movement, but for the most part in 4 hours I moved maybe a mile or so. I learned eventually that a gasoline semi broke down on the George Washington bridge on Friday morning and even though it was all straighten out... traffic was ruined for the rest of the day. Never saw anything like it before. People were going nuts and traffic was in chaos. I made it through and it only cost me 4 hours and put me on the north side of New York at 5 o'clock rush hour traffic for the rest of my driving.

HULK HAVE NO PATIENTS FOR THIS. HULK NO WAIT, HULK SMASH! WAKE HULK UP WHEN WE GET THERE!

 In an attempt to get me through the chaos, my GPS thought I should end up in the Bronx... on the streets.. in the Bronx... yeah, this went well...

Needless to say when it was all said and done I arrived in Amherst a good 5 hours later then I thought I would arrive even under the worse of situations. I missed seeing the movie with everyone as I had planned, but I had a nice late dinner with Drew and Steve and that made up for a lot. Things were still golden and filled with anticipation and the first day of IMC was ahead of us! What's the worse that could happen???

See you back here tomorrow for a look at Day 1 of IMC 2012! Until then...

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com