Drawing Tuesday: Captain Scott's Overshoes at National Maritime Museum

 It's a long time   since I've  met up with the   'Drawing Tuesday'  gang ( last time was the Petrie  in August! )  Lots  has been going on  in the intervening months  ( which I might eventually get round to blogging about )  but it's easier to start from what I did today. 

I do like visiting the National Maritime  Museum  in Greenwich and can get there  by train without going through London, travelling  on Thameslink train from Gravesend  seeing a different part of Essex from my 'Javelin Journeys' . My last visit there  in January I didn't do much drawing as I was  investigating maps.  I spend about half an hour wandering through the Pacific  tempted by the barkcloth,   before heading to the Polar Worlds.

 With a convenient  stool nearby ,  I drew  Captain Scott's  Overshoes , first in pencil and then  with a calligraphy  pen .  Difficult to get the proportions   right  in either medium, kept get different things wrong ! 

At home, doing more research ,I found this  blog post on their conservation.   Both poignant and fascinating. 

Drawing Tuesday at the Queens House

  Drawing Tuesday this week was at the National Maritime  Museum, Greenwich  but as the Queens House had only just reopened after a lengthy refurbishment I  stopped off  for a quick look around. Only there was so much to see  in the end I only had about half an hours drawing in the museum itself.
Besides the portraits and pictures of battleships at sea there were some contemporary  work on display alongside older  pieces.

  My favourites were the panel of tiles hung opposite each other : the panel of old Delft tiles  showing whaling opposite 'Sea Marks' by Tania Kovats.  Her inspiring book 'Drawing Water'  shows variations of this done in ink. 

  To get to the galleries you have to climb the gorgeous 'Tulip Staircase'

  Besides paintings, they had some quirkier old artworks like the woolwork embroidered pictures ( don't you love those skies!) and the Working Mens Educational posters of the stars from 1850's printed on cotton ( they could be easily  rolled and hung up in different venues)  

 Another fabric wall hanging was this fantastic  huge screenprinted  commemoration of the Glasgow shipyards by Alexander Hardie Williamson. I'd never heard of him - apparently he's best known for designing Ravenhead glassware.  The subject matter also had resonance for me - my grandfather was a pattern-maker there ( he was involved with the refit of Queen Mary)  and my dad an apprentice , going to evening classes to get a HND in engineering.  

Scattered around several rooms were the paintings of Herbert Barnard John  Everett who apparently has the largest number of paintings in public collections of any artist!  Definitely worth finding out more about - I loved his stylised designs and colour

  He was particularly known for recording the 'dazzle' designs on ships

 

But enough of looking at paintings , I was determined to  do at least some drawing, attempting from a dark corner to draw this 'Scare devil' from the Nicobar Islands . Difficult foreshortening and poor lighting  means he looks more like  Noddy  than a power figure! 

 A long train ride home ( we were stuck for half an hour  outside Dartford due to signaling problems) had me  doodling in my handbag sketchbook with a biro, I'd been reminded by   Janet's drawings how versatile  drawing instrument it is.

Drawing Tuesday at the National Maritime Museum

It's been a while since I've been drawing with the Tuesday gang in museums  because of  travelling up for the British Museum 'Drawing from Collections'. That course being over it was good to reconnect, the venue today being the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. I haven't visited since the 'Turner and the Sea 'exhibition - travelling from Faversham  changing trains at Gillingham and Woolwich was a bit more of an adventure but actually quite  straightforward as I avoided central London.  It was good to see the  '4th plinth' ship in the bottle with its sails of African fabrics  and I was mesmerised by the sea projection in the 'Voyagers' gallery.

 However, having arrived late I was eager to get stuck into some drawing, what to choose??

 I loved the figureheads which both Margaret and Joyce were drawing  from different angles. But in the end I headed back to the Voyagers gallery as they had some interesting items in the cases , not  too badly lit and relatively quiet.

 My grandfather  on my dad's side was a pattern-maker on the Glasgow shipyards (including the Queen Mary)  before he became a gardener, a love of working with wood he passed on to   Dad.

 As I've been doing a lot of hand stitching at the moment ( and know the importance of thimbles , my favourite is the ' comfort'), I was fascinated by the sailmakers tools - the reamer for  flat seams(7)  but particularly the 'roping palm' (5) .

It proved surprisingly difficult to draw correctly ( I should have stuck with 1 drawing rather than multiple versions). What I really wanted to do was to have it on my hand  and feel how it worked!