Category Archives: exhibitions

Tate Modern

Sketches from a recent visit to Tate Modern; visitors encountering ‘Babel 2001’, taking a break in the cafe, viewing Karl Blossfeldt photos, and waiting at Paddington for the train home.

Posted in bamboo dip pen, cafe, exhibitions, London, urban, urban sketching | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Stockholm museums

More sketches from Stockholm’s wonderfully rich collection of museums, this time the Museum of Ethnography, the Mediterranean Museum, and the Nordic Museum. From the top… a cabinet of small statues, a pair of Roman busts, a Saami knife handle (and portrait … Continue reading

Posted in collections, exhibitions, masks, museum, statues, Stockholm, urban, urban sketching | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

American artefacts

A couple of speedy sketches from the highly recommended American Museum in Bath, “The only museum of American decorative and folk art outside the United States”. First a small bronze version of the famous 1909 statue ‘Appeal to the Great Spirit’. Then … Continue reading

Posted in Bath, body, exhibitions, figures, museum, pencil, sculpture, statues, white pen | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

And now for something…

…completely different. My last post was unexpectedly popular (a six-fold increase in visitors to the site!), and hopefully there are wooden sketchbooks now emerging from book-presses all over the world. Here’s a sketch from a small exhibition at the Victoria Art … Continue reading

Posted in animals, Bath, exhibitions, objects, statues, urban, urban sketching | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Raptors and others

“Birds of prey, also known as raptors, hunt and feed on other animals. These birds are characterised by keen vision that allows them to detect prey during flight and powerful talons and beaks.” I couldn’t fit the talons in, but here … Continue reading

Posted in animals, Birds, Bristol, brush pen, exhibitions, figures, ink brush, Manchester Symposium, museum, people watching, urban, urban sketching | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Oxford Museums #2

After graveyards and guns I’ll lighten the mood with some cheerier items from the Ashmolean, “the oldest public museum in Britain, and the first purpose-built public museum in the world”, which grew out Tradescant’s Ark, a C17th ‘cabinet of curiosity’. First there’s a … Continue reading

Posted in animals, exhibitions, faces, figures, museum, sculpture, statues, urban, urban sketching | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Grounded

Stuffed and numbered birds on display at the small but wonderful Stewartry Museum, Kircudbright; I didn’t have time to paint all their glorious colours, so had to settle for ink-brush monochrome, concentrating on feathers and form. Then the head of a dead Gannet found while … Continue reading

Posted in animals, beach, beachcombing, Birds, collections, death, exhibitions, fauna, museum, sea, skulls | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

mostly Greek

More sketches of classical statuary, mostly from the ongoing ‘Defining Beauty‘ exhibition at the British Museum, which is so full of wonderful stuff that I ended up doing very fast drawings with a marker pen, out of sight of the … Continue reading

Posted in body, coloured paper, exhibitions, figures, London, monochrome, museum, objects, pencil, sculpture, statues | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Busted

A fine pair of portrait busts from the upper floor of Bath’s Victoria Gallery (you can see both of them in the linked photo). First there’s Sir Cloudesley Shovell (honestly), a famous C17th admiral and guitarist. Then George 3rd, king of Britain for 59 … Continue reading

Posted in Bath, coloured ink, coloured paper, exhibitions, faces, figures, inks, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, museum, objects, sculpture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ow, my head hurts

Two bisected heads; first a pickled crocodile at the Grant Museum in London (tiny and old but very lovely), and then an anatomical model human at the Tokyo Museum of Emerging Science (large and modern, where I saw all the … Continue reading

Posted in animal, body, coloured ink, death, exhibitions, from life, inks, Japan, line drawing, monochrome, museum, skulls | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments