Drawing Tuesday - Flying in the Science Museum

 It's years since I visited the Science  Museum ( probably not since I was at University round the corner over 30 years ago)  so I  got thoroughly lost  finding the 'flight'  gallery, destination for Tuesday's drawing session. Memories of the   aviation section of the Royal Army Museum in Brussels .

  I was enchanted by the  early planes, so fragile, and spent most of my time sitting in front of the case dedicated to  Hiram Maxim ( as in gun) 

 It was the curves of 'Phillip's Propeller  which attracted me but  it proved a challenging subject with all that foreshortening!

  As  bit of light relief , I turned to the boomerangs in the next case , trying to capture the different qualities of their surfaces  using graphite and eraser.

 And finally a quick biro sketch , not taking the pen off the paper,  attempting to untangle what was happening in this model ( which it looked like it had evolved rather than  being planned).

  Waiting for others  to finish,  Margaret  showed me the different kinds of rivets - this seaplane   being a good example. Definitely lots of things of interest for another visit

 After a leisurely lunch, I did a little more exploring in the museum on the gallery devoted to 'challenge of materials'

 There were 2 polyester dresses in a case on 'Perceptions' where unusual materials had been used for clothing ( like the Vivian Westwood  Axminster carpet dress). These had stainless steel coating with permanent embossed images of spoons ( above) and of hands( below), playing with the idea of transparency/solidity.

 This sculpture using layers of different flooring materials was fun

  Then a bit of retail therapy in the museum shop - couldn't resist this heavy cotton lined bag  showing  how a sewing machine makes stitches on one side and about cotton production on the other.

Then a bus ride to  High St Ken  and Cass arts. I only went in for a fine eraser   but somehow  came out with 2( Tombow Mono zero and Derwent eraser -pen)   and a tin of Winsor and  Newton   watercolour markers..... I made them work hard in the shop as the packaging just had dots of colours  on the front, not a list of what they were  but they helpfully looked it up on the computer so I could work out what additional ones to buy  to replace the green and black.  I'll let you know how I get on.