Drawing Tuesday at Museum of London ( plus S.E.W. exhibition)

Last Tuesday  I was back drawing in the Museum of London, in my favourite section ' London before London'  among the prehistoric axes and  pots.  My current sketchbook  started there in June last year   and creature of habit that I am , I was drawing the same pots from the other side of the case! It's always  very busy with school group and excited children   but it's  rather gratifying to have their praise for your drawings no matter how poor and to  find out what they like to draw. 

  This time I was using my embossing ' scraffito'  pen with  watercolour pencil and graphite over the top 

 I struggled with the proportions of this collared pot  ( calligraphy pens and graphite) , even after all these years ,  it's so easy to  revert to not looking and drawing what you think you see .

After lunch in the café , Margaret mentioned the '  vegetable dolls'  which were  charming and definately worth a look

Then   Janet, Sue, Judith and I headed  to Clerkenwell   for exhibition by Society for Embroidered Work ( totally lost my sense of direction as   we took shortcuts through  Smithfields)  Interesting selection of work on show ( online catalogue here) 

Emily Tull 

Sue Hodgkiss 

Edith Barton 

 Annie Taylor 

 Djonne Swift 

 Deborah Cooper

Bridget Steel-Jessop

And the gallery space itself was so inspiring, all that peeling paint!

 I then  headed to the  British Museum Members Room for afternoon coffee and cake  before my first  session   of Art in theory; Space and Place  at City Lit ( more about that in another post ). 

 I didn't get home till after 9.30, too exhausted to stitch on the train , but a very satisfying creative day.  Next week , back at the Petrie Museum ( my favourite)   

Drawing Tuesday at Museum of London

 Tuesday's drawing session    was at the Museum of London. I was starting a new sketchbook ( the 3rd devoted to museums) , always scary, so I'd been looking through the previous 2 as inspiration for what I might draw ( and therefore  what materials  to take).  Ancient pots and tools, ' the hand of the maker'  evident   still continue to fascinate me  so it was no surprise I headed to the Neolithic gallery and  after a bit of wandering round, settled on the other side of the case I drew from last time!

It's surprisingly difficult to  capture  wonkiness accurately! I had several attempts with lots of rubbing out then concentrated on the marks and textures  combining different media ( watersoluble pencils; Pitt pens in varying thicknesses in sanguine and sepia; 0.1 and 0.3 Unipens: pencils and graphite) . The items made of antler horn were particularly difficult.

At lunchtime  when doing 'show and tell' of our sketches ( as ever, widely diverse subjects) , the others wanted to know how I  got the effects on the black pot.  I first developed this technique drawing at the Petrie Museum : scoring lines with a leadless propelling pencil then rubbing over with 6B graphite . The inner part was graphite partially erased with tombow eraser, another of my essential tools  

Drawing Tuesday: Museum of London

 A successful day out  along the Northern Line: dropping off my Fine Art Quilt Masters entry to Upper Street Events ( Angel) then onto Museum of London ( Moorgate) for 'Drawing Tuesday' then finishing up at Intaglio Printmaker ( Borough) before heading back to St Pancras.   

  I very  rarely make it past the Neolithic section, I just the love the marks, the evidence of the hand of the maker, in the pots and vessels  and knapped flints and tools.  This time was no different and with lots of sketching stools available  found a well lit  display case  with both.  What made it even more special was that they were collected  from the Thames close to where I used to live.

I attempted the vessels first, the very aspect that I like in their irregularities and roughness making them very difficult to draw properly - still not right  despite several goes.  I kept getting distracted by the different marks in the flint dagger so moved on to trying to capture those in different hardnesses of graphite ( and use of my  Tombow eraser , one of my favourite tools).  It was fascinating to really  look through drawing,  I must get back to recording my 'small treasures'  ( I've added rather more to my collection...)

After lunch with the usual wide-ranging discussions and  seeing what other people  had drawn I headed off to Intaglio Printmaker in Southwark ( a week later than the others!)  to stock up on Japanese woodblock printing items . The most expensive item apart from tools I'd already bought for course was the sharpening stone. Though the watercolour paints I've collected over the years must run into £££.