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.

 Some of the paintings  etc that caught my eye : 

 Textile piece by  Alice Channer 

 Deanna Petherbridge 

Vicken Parsons 

 Wilhelmina Barnes- Graham 

 Peter Lanyon 

 Roger Hilton 

Terry Frost 

Ben Nicolson 

Winifred Nicolson 

 Paul Feiler 'Morvah'  

(  looking for an image  of this online  I found the  work below , stunning!) 

Paul Feiler ' Crossed Forms' 

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!

Drawing Tuesday at Museum of London ( plus S.E.W. exhibition)

Last Tuesday  I was back drawing in the Museum of London, in my favourite section ' London before London'  among the prehistoric axes and  pots.  My current sketchbook  started there in June last year   and creature of habit that I am , I was drawing the same pots from the other side of the case! It's always  very busy with school group and excited children   but it's  rather gratifying to have their praise for your drawings no matter how poor and to  find out what they like to draw. 

  This time I was using my embossing ' scraffito'  pen with  watercolour pencil and graphite over the top 

 I struggled with the proportions of this collared pot  ( calligraphy pens and graphite) , even after all these years ,  it's so easy to  revert to not looking and drawing what you think you see .

After lunch in the café , Margaret mentioned the '  vegetable dolls'  which were  charming and definately worth a look

Then   Janet, Sue, Judith and I headed  to Clerkenwell   for exhibition by Society for Embroidered Work ( totally lost my sense of direction as   we took shortcuts through  Smithfields)  Interesting selection of work on show ( online catalogue here) 

Emily Tull 

Sue Hodgkiss 

Edith Barton 

 Annie Taylor 

 Djonne Swift 

 Deborah Cooper

Bridget Steel-Jessop

And the gallery space itself was so inspiring, all that peeling paint!

 I then  headed to the  British Museum Members Room for afternoon coffee and cake  before my first  session   of Art in theory; Space and Place  at City Lit ( more about that in another post ). 

 I didn't get home till after 9.30, too exhausted to stitch on the train , but a very satisfying creative day.  Next week , back at the Petrie Museum ( my favourite)