Drawing Small Treasures update

 In preparation  for tomorrow's return visit to the Islamic Gallery at the British Museum  for 'Drawing Tuesday' I've been practising sketching old glass using different materials  - this fragment  with patches of iridescense  came from Syria .

  Today's other subject was  a shell with  lots of worm-eaten holes ( worth drawing on a much bigger scale to analyse the different shape holes.

 

  More shells - this time  a couple of mussels from the '100 objects' exercise in Puglia

 An exquisite  piece of lacy coral.

  A stripy shell

 

 

A stripy stone 

 A white flint nodule

 A partially worked green flint

 

 

A piece of wood with a beady 'eye' 

 

Meanwhile overnight  a large inkcap popped up in the  gravel - I did consider  sketching it but it was already oozing with black 'ink' and our buyers architect was visiting so  it was tidied up into the compost. 

Meet 'Ms Incy'. This splendid garden spider has been building her web against the outside glass of the conservatory  so we've had an excellent view of the process. Late one night we were also witness to the courtship  advances of 'Mr Wincy' as he very cautiously  vibrated the web and inched forward with one leg tentatively reaching out to touch her leg. They both  recoiled several times - he seemed to be making some progress but then she lowered herself on a long line out of the  way - 'not in the mood'. At least he wasn't eaten.  

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.

Drawing Small Treasures - first attempts

 

 Today's attempt to draw a 'small treasure' ( in this case a terracotta pottery shard )  went rather  better than yesterday's drawing, mainly as the use of  colour ( Cretacolor oil )  helps to distinguish between the object and shadows. 

 

  I really struggled yesterday  with a  small grey sparkly stone, the shadows seem more solid than the item itself! With some time left within my 30 minutes I had a play with pen and then watercolours which suffered from   impatience waiting for  initial wash to dry. I'm most pleased with the bottom left effort, even if it does look like a butter bean (or perhaps 'Gigantes'  seeing it was probably a Greek stone).   

Pressing and Drawing Plants

After saying yesterday  that I would be drawing ' little treasures' from my collection,  what grabbed my attention this afternoon was the  cobnuts that  Ian brought back from Faversham Hop Festival ( he also bought delicious Discovery apples)

 I did  set the time for 30 minutes and only overran by 5, working in the  14cm  square sketchbook I took to Portland. I started with Sepia superfine PITT artist pen then switched to 2H/2B  pencil

 Also this afternoon I pressed some more plants  for future 'ecodyeing'  using  my homemade herbarium plant press  that worked a treat earlier in the year.  Consists of 2 wire cake racks with alternating layers of corrugated cardboard interleaved with folded sections of newspaper, kept taut with 2 car roof rack straps ( they're rather  too long but can be tied round for extra tightening)

And if this  pressing  and drawing flowers sounds rather like  activities of an Edwardian lady ( in keeping with this house), it contrasts  with a hi-tech morning  at the dentist  where I watched  fascinated  as my CEREC  tooth cap  was chiselled from a block of  porcelain  working from a 3D  computer drawing. A different kind of ceramic sculpture! 

 

Drawing Tuesday at Home

I reluctantly decided against   going to the National Maritime Museum  today to join the others  sketching - too long and awkward a journey at peak time.  However I was determined that I would do some drawing.   After the session   in the V&A  ceramics  collections, I had looked at the pottery I produced myself over 20 years ago in a new light.    Besides tiny thumb pots , I was obsessed with  coils and a luscious green glaze that produced varied  colours - they're a bit clunky  but  Ian likes them and they look good  from a distance on top of the bookshelves. From a sketching perspective I thought they would be an  interesting  challenge to try and  draw.

  2 hours passed very quickly ( it helped that the chair was comfortable and no craning of neck involved) . I can see now it's  not right ( I was so absorbed I didn't step back from it)  but there's areas I like . Next time I'd concentrate on a detail and pay more attention to the quality  and variation of the line.

 Sorting through books to pack, I came across my copy of  Elements of Drawing  by John Ruskin. I've  carried out some of the exercises in the past to improve observation,   so that even a simple pebble  can look monumental.  So I've decided  over the next few weeks to draw  some of the  small treasures I've collected over the years:  stones, shells, bits of glass and pottery,  the aim being to spend no longer than 30 minutes  on each.

Sketching Barkcloth at the British Museum

 This weeks ' drawing Tuesday'  expedition was to the  Pacific Barkcloth exhibition at the British  Museum ( which as the main  print /drawing gallery was closed, involved going up  through the Japanese gallery and then down again).  As I've already visited twice  before ( see here)  I already had an idea what I wanted to draw but  looked at it in a new perspective.
I settled on trying to capture the patterns of this loincloth  - through a very quick fine pen sketch  for a rough overall layout and then some details in thicker felt-tip.  The more I looked and drew, the more I felt a connection with the maker - the unevenness of the ink and line,  the variations in the surface,  and the riffs on  what seemed initially like the same  pattern.

 Concentrating  on the  patterns painted on the cloth , my attention kept being drawn to the fringe at the bottom and it's shadow, liking the  positive and negative shapes  so I   then attempted drawing this in 2H and 2B pencil. Lots of counting and rubbing out - it's still not quite right.  The light was so poor I didn't realise until I looked at the photos on the research pages that  its constructed  with 1  strip 'stitched' through the edge to leave 2 strands dangling - makes more sense than cutting into the edge.   

  I then turned my attentions  to this headdress  of barkcloth with bound feathers, drawing it from some distance   from a convenient bench then looking closer at the details of the bindings.  The feathers I particularly enjoyed drawing - pressing hard with a 2H pencil from the base and using my whole arm in a 'whoosh' of lighter pressure to the tip. Very satisfying to engage with materials - for years I've shunned pencil  wanting to dive straight into colour  but the City Lit drawing course   challenged my prejudices.   

 

 I  was trying  to remember what the feathers ( and the action of drawing them ) reminded me of , then looking through my photos from my first visit  to the exhibition in April I remembered- the etchings of paintbrushes  by Jim Dine which were in the next  gallery. I was then about  to start my printing course and look on them now with even more awe knowing what's involved. 

 

Shifting Patterns: Pacific Barkcloth at the British Museum

 Visiting the 'Shifting Patterns: Pacific Barkcloth '  exhibition at the British museum  for 'drawing Tuesday' this week  ( more in another post),  reminded me that although I'd visited twice before , I'd neglected somehow  to blog about it!  Besides some wonderful examples of exquisite and dynamic drawing and painting, the  hand of the maker  in evidence, the processes and tools used are shown and explained, Fascinating and covetable, well worth multiple visits.  Searching for more details about certain items , I found that as most of the items  from the collections, a search on 'Pacific Barkcloth' on the BM website  brings up a wealth of information and  much better photos than were possible in the  reduced lighting  where they were displayed.