magsramsay: Drawing Tuesday at Tate Britain

First impressions on arrival at Tate Britain yesterday for ' Drawing Tuesday' was of very high levels of noise from excited children. They were visiting in groups to see the Steve McQueen Year 3 Project and take part in a range of linked activities. Art works in various galleries had notes next to them to encourage questions and thought which was great to see. But actively encouraging the children to shout and scream at the top of their voices was overwhelming , they could be heard some distance away, I wish I'd brought earplugs with me !

Usually when I visit the Tate for 'Drawing Tuesday' sessions , I either do several colour sketches of work that interests me or more recently, draw from sculpture.

After wandering for a while around the ' Walk Through British Art" galleries concentrating on the 20th Century and contemporary work, I kept coming back to this wonderful wooden sculpture ' Johanaan' by Ronald Moody ( interested to see that he too was inspired by work in the British Museum ! )

It was the way he'd made use of the grain of the wood to suggest contours which fascinated me and I tried to capture that using calligraphy pens with graphite over the top to suggest the form.

It reminded me of some of the drawings of tattooed figures and masks from the Oceania exhibition. After lunch I came back and did a larger drawing of an ear.