Drawing Small Treasures - first attempts

 

 Today's attempt to draw a 'small treasure' ( in this case a terracotta pottery shard )  went rather  better than yesterday's drawing, mainly as the use of  colour ( Cretacolor oil )  helps to distinguish between the object and shadows. 

 

  I really struggled yesterday  with a  small grey sparkly stone, the shadows seem more solid than the item itself! With some time left within my 30 minutes I had a play with pen and then watercolours which suffered from   impatience waiting for  initial wash to dry. I'm most pleased with the bottom left effort, even if it does look like a butter bean (or perhaps 'Gigantes'  seeing it was probably a Greek stone).   

Pressing and Drawing Plants

After saying yesterday  that I would be drawing ' little treasures' from my collection,  what grabbed my attention this afternoon was the  cobnuts that  Ian brought back from Faversham Hop Festival ( he also bought delicious Discovery apples)

 I did  set the time for 30 minutes and only overran by 5, working in the  14cm  square sketchbook I took to Portland. I started with Sepia superfine PITT artist pen then switched to 2H/2B  pencil

 Also this afternoon I pressed some more plants  for future 'ecodyeing'  using  my homemade herbarium plant press  that worked a treat earlier in the year.  Consists of 2 wire cake racks with alternating layers of corrugated cardboard interleaved with folded sections of newspaper, kept taut with 2 car roof rack straps ( they're rather  too long but can be tied round for extra tightening)

And if this  pressing  and drawing flowers sounds rather like  activities of an Edwardian lady ( in keeping with this house), it contrasts  with a hi-tech morning  at the dentist  where I watched  fascinated  as my CEREC  tooth cap  was chiselled from a block of  porcelain  working from a 3D  computer drawing. A different kind of ceramic sculpture! 

 

Drawing Tuesday at Home

I reluctantly decided against   going to the National Maritime Museum  today to join the others  sketching - too long and awkward a journey at peak time.  However I was determined that I would do some drawing.   After the session   in the V&A  ceramics  collections, I had looked at the pottery I produced myself over 20 years ago in a new light.    Besides tiny thumb pots , I was obsessed with  coils and a luscious green glaze that produced varied  colours - they're a bit clunky  but  Ian likes them and they look good  from a distance on top of the bookshelves. From a sketching perspective I thought they would be an  interesting  challenge to try and  draw.

  2 hours passed very quickly ( it helped that the chair was comfortable and no craning of neck involved) . I can see now it's  not right ( I was so absorbed I didn't step back from it)  but there's areas I like . Next time I'd concentrate on a detail and pay more attention to the quality  and variation of the line.

 Sorting through books to pack, I came across my copy of  Elements of Drawing  by John Ruskin. I've  carried out some of the exercises in the past to improve observation,   so that even a simple pebble  can look monumental.  So I've decided  over the next few weeks to draw  some of the  small treasures I've collected over the years:  stones, shells, bits of glass and pottery,  the aim being to spend no longer than 30 minutes  on each.

Sketching Barkcloth at the British Museum

 This weeks ' drawing Tuesday'  expedition was to the  Pacific Barkcloth exhibition at the British  Museum ( which as the main  print /drawing gallery was closed, involved going up  through the Japanese gallery and then down again).  As I've already visited twice  before ( see here)  I already had an idea what I wanted to draw but  looked at it in a new perspective.
I settled on trying to capture the patterns of this loincloth  - through a very quick fine pen sketch  for a rough overall layout and then some details in thicker felt-tip.  The more I looked and drew, the more I felt a connection with the maker - the unevenness of the ink and line,  the variations in the surface,  and the riffs on  what seemed initially like the same  pattern.

 Concentrating  on the  patterns painted on the cloth , my attention kept being drawn to the fringe at the bottom and it's shadow, liking the  positive and negative shapes  so I   then attempted drawing this in 2H and 2B pencil. Lots of counting and rubbing out - it's still not quite right.  The light was so poor I didn't realise until I looked at the photos on the research pages that  its constructed  with 1  strip 'stitched' through the edge to leave 2 strands dangling - makes more sense than cutting into the edge.   

  I then turned my attentions  to this headdress  of barkcloth with bound feathers, drawing it from some distance   from a convenient bench then looking closer at the details of the bindings.  The feathers I particularly enjoyed drawing - pressing hard with a 2H pencil from the base and using my whole arm in a 'whoosh' of lighter pressure to the tip. Very satisfying to engage with materials - for years I've shunned pencil  wanting to dive straight into colour  but the City Lit drawing course   challenged my prejudices.   

 

 I  was trying  to remember what the feathers ( and the action of drawing them ) reminded me of , then looking through my photos from my first visit  to the exhibition in April I remembered- the etchings of paintbrushes  by Jim Dine which were in the next  gallery. I was then about  to start my printing course and look on them now with even more awe knowing what's involved. 

 

Shifting Patterns: Pacific Barkcloth at the British Museum

 Visiting the 'Shifting Patterns: Pacific Barkcloth '  exhibition at the British museum  for 'drawing Tuesday' this week  ( more in another post),  reminded me that although I'd visited twice before , I'd neglected somehow  to blog about it!  Besides some wonderful examples of exquisite and dynamic drawing and painting, the  hand of the maker  in evidence, the processes and tools used are shown and explained, Fascinating and covetable, well worth multiple visits.  Searching for more details about certain items , I found that as most of the items  from the collections, a search on 'Pacific Barkcloth' on the BM website  brings up a wealth of information and  much better photos than were possible in the  reduced lighting  where they were displayed.

Sketching Ceramics at the V&A

 I thought I knew the V&A pretty well having been a regular visitor since the 1980's when I was at  university just round the corner.  But I  haven't been  up to the ceramics  on the 6th floor before  which was the destination for Sketching Tuesday  earlier this week.  With excellent light , sketching stools readily available  and a vast  collection,  it was a fantastic if overwhelming choice.  So many shapes, textures and colours, where to start? I spent  almost an hour wandering around,  gazing into cabinets. 
My preference is for early, relatively  plain  wares : when I did pottery evening classes in Shepherds Bush years ago  with Marta  Donaghey, my inspiration was prehistoric/ Neolithic pottery  and  I made masses of thumb pots incised with different marks.  When I go on holiday  I'm actually  really interested in seeing  all those broken bit of pots in  dusty museums!

I loved all the examples of oil lamps  ( above) it looks like the curators had fun arranging them - all  similar shapes yet unique , handmade.

  The colours of the stacks of bowls  in the  Middle Eastern section with their lovely glazes   and the subtlety  of the  Korean? dishes really appealed  but as  I  only had  graphite and ink as drawing media   I sought out some interesting shaped  vessels  to draw

 Some of these early  Chinese ceramics  caught my eye

 In the end I settled  for this pert   Chinese  ewer  with 3 feet from about 2500BC  - made from the same clay as porcelain  but before the high temperature kilns had been invented , it remained as porous earthenware ( but more resistant to heat than other clays) . This and it's distinctive shape  suggests it was placed over a fire for boiling water. I'd intended to  draw it with the  amazing coiled structure behind but ran out of time.

From my viewpoint I could only see 2 of it's  feet ( with the shadow of the third in the glass)  and  found it far more difficult to draw than I'd anticipated . Huge amounts of rubbing out and correcting were involved - get one part right and then another would be incorrect !   Over coffee and custard tart later , I was trying to explain to the others  the frustration  of capturing  something that is irregular and imperfect   - between eyes and pencil , your mind tries to correct it, drawing what you think ought to be there rather than what you actually observe.   I  was pleased with the handle though!

Sketching European Armoury at the Wallace Collection

 Ian couldn't quite believe it when I said I was going  drawing armour at the Wallace Collection  on latest 'Sketching  Tuesday' with Margaret Cooter and co - he usually only gets me to go to military museums on special occasions - like his 50th birthday.    While all the ornate  furniture and old masters there don't appeal, it was a  quiet location for a museum in school holidays and  there was a lot to enjoy in the  incredible craftsmanship  of the rapiers ( and the interesting patterns of their shadows)

I started off with a blind drawing ( not looking at the paper ) , then  observing the negative shapes, before attempting to draw in greater detail in pen and graphite. It took a while to work out what was going on. As relief from all those curves, I tried to capture the qualities of the different blades ( though I think from reading the detailed book describing the case contents, they were for ceremonial rather than practical use). Some of the terminology was rather interesting too, 'quillons' was my new word of the day.