El Anatsui at October Gallery and Drawing Tuesday at Petrie Museum

Nearly a month since my last blogpost , too busy doing things to record  here  so a lot of catching up to do!

 Last Saturday  I had my EDAM Term 2 tutorial with Ute Kreyman  and I made the most of my trip up to London to fit  in  a visit afterwards to the October Gallery to see the El Anatsui exhibition. 

I nearly didn't make it as there was trouble  with the trains as signalling cables had been stolen overnight  and spent nearly an hour  on a stationery train . Just as well I had my sewing with me!  So I only had time for a quick lunch  in the British Museum Members Room before my tutorial. 

The El Anatsui exhibition  was of relatively small pieces ( if you compare them to the covering of the front of the Royal Academy!)  as well as some interesting prints. It was lovely to get so close to the work and the shadows cast were wonderful, I was very aware of the 3D sculptural qualities.   

On Tuesday I was once again back in the British Museum Members Room for lunch before an afternoon's drawing session at the Petrie Museum. One of my favourite places,  it's so  crammed with stuff it can be overwhelming and difficult to choose where to start.I just love all the pot shards and fragments. I was distracted initially by this wonderful footstool and  thanks to Carol , spent some time opening some of the many   drawers and finding bizarre collections.  

But as on my last visit there, I settled in  a chair with table to spread out my materials (including  new calligraphy pens)   in front of a cabinet  and drew just what was in front of me 

Pen and coloured pencil over initial rough pencil sketch 

Trying those new pens in continuous line ( sort of) 

Looking at the negative shapes

Toned Khardi paper with white gel pen, Uni pen, graphite, coloured pencil and limestone  from Deal Castle 

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