Daily Drawing: November

 Daily drawings  from November, my favourite  is  from 28th,   2 takeaway little  sourdough cinnamon swirl buns from the 'Hot Tin' , delicious with coffee  ( I must confess I'd already had one in the morning  when meeting up with friends there ) 

 This months selection is a  mixture of observational  drawings/watercolour paintings ;   copies of drawings from ' Drawing Tuesday' expeditions; inspirational photos ( my own)  and scraps of fabrics  and stitching 

Drawing Tuesday at the Petrie Museum

 After drawing in the African Gallery of British Museum  in the morning, I spent last Tuesday afternoon  drawing pots at the Petrie Museum as I have many times before! I still get overwhelmed by the amount of  objects stuffed into the cases and deciding what to draw  always takes a while. In the end it  came down to sitting at a convenient table with a chair  and drawing what was in front of me !  

UPDATE :   As  Margaret Cooter notes  in her blogpost on our visit,  such delicate drawings are difficult to photograph  well, the marks get lost on the page. I   scanned in the drawing, , increased  contrast in Photoshop and printed out a copy , drawing round the  shapes with a large Pitt  marker in sanguine.

Drawing in the British Museum African Galleries

Last Tuesday   we were meeting up at the Petrie Museum  at 1pm  to sketch  but  I still  caught my usual 8.59  train  and headed  to the British Museum  beforehand . Fortified by a coffee and pastel del nata  in the  Members Room  , I spent an hour in the African   Galleries .

 I've drawn the knives before  but its always the pottery  than inspires me.

 A couple of quick drawings  then a wander around.

While I love seeing the shadows of the El Anatsui  work, it was good to remind myself of  his   wooden  ' Kente Cloth' ( below)

 I loved this drawing ' Tree'  by Ibraham Mohammed El Salahi  based on the 'jibba' worn by sufi brotherhood.  I missed this exhibition at the Tate, looks amazing 

  My lunch of soup in the members room was cut short   by  an evacuation of the building  ( fire sirens  went off , they initially said it was a false alarm but then we were all told to leave ) We were directed through a  side entrance  through   what looked like the boiler room.  We were out there about 20 mins , no point in returning to my soup so collected my bag and coat from the cloakroom  and headed off to the Petrie. There was strike   and demonstration going on outside UCL ( on  outsourced staff rights)  so  respecting  their wishes  not to cross the picket line, had to make  a detour. My geography of the area is getting much better!

BM Drawing from the Collections: Volume and Mass

 

3rd session 'Drawing from the Collections' at the  British Museum was focused on  volume and mass using the pots in the African Gallery ( and the addition of burnt sienna pastel to charcoal and white chalk of last week).  I just love these pots and have drawn them before 





 I remembered this time to take photos as I  went along both to record the process but also to spot where things start to go wrong .

  After practising mark-making and 'swooshes' with the side of the burnt sienna pastel and  a wrm up with a quick drawing in charcoal, we sketched the outline of the structure in charcoal

 Next step was filling in mass with the pastel   then adding  darkest areas in charcoal.

There was a lot of small adjustments between these 2 stages, gradually adding tone, marks and textures. I thought I was ready for the white chalk  but wasn't allowed it until I'd properly defined the dark areas. Good advice,  along with showing where I hadn't quite described the shape, how to hint at texture without putting every last mark in, areas where I needed to work into more to balance more finished areas  ( bottom right still need attention)  

 Overall, I was really pleased with what I achieved  - unfortunately I won't be going next weekend as  bus replacement  service for rail  would double the journey. But as I'm heading up to Rydal tomorrow, I won't be short  of inspiration ( my packing mainly consists of art materials and thermals!)

 

On the way home, the reflected evening light over the marshes between Stratford and Ebbsfleet  was  lovely despite  being a bit out of practice taking photos at speed from the train.