I’m an Urban Sketcher…
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Category Archives: exhibitions
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 anatomical sketches, bisected heads, crocodile head, fountain pen sketches, Grant Museum, Rage Against the Machine, section of crocodile head, section of human head, sketching in museums, sketching with coloured inks, Tokyo Museum of Emerging Science
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Worshippers, ancient and modern
Lexington grey fountain pen and water-brush, white Gelly Roll pen, white gouache, on coloured paper, A5 – 10 minutes line drawing at the museum, and 30 minutes adding the light and shade at home A small fraction of the 2,000 votive figures … Continue reading
Posted in collections, coloured paper, exhibitions, Lexington grey, monochrome, museum, Stockholm, urban, white pen
Tagged Ayia Irini, crowd, crowd of statues, Field for the British Isles, monochrome, monochrome sketch, shop window dummies, Stockholm Mediterranean Musem, The Specials, urban sketching, votive statues
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Cursive
Water-brush with Lexington grey ink, tea, A5 – 15 minutes I copied this from the inside of an Egyptian mummy at Bristol City Museum. The whole inner surface of the case was covered with beautifully relaxed and flowing cursive hieroglyphs, … Continue reading
@ Bristol #2
Some more from @Bristol. Two sketches overlapping on one page creating an odd couple; a gorilla skeleton and a large model of Morph, a 1970’s children’s animation classic from Aardman. Each sketch took about 10 minutes, and that’s a paint accident, not … Continue reading
Posted in animals, collections, exhibitions, from life, museum, sculpture, skeleton, sketching
Tagged @ Bristol, Aardman, bones, cold nose, gorilla, Gorillaz, Morph, skull, the Odd Couple, thermal imaging
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The Wild West
Guns, tipi pegs and keys from the recent ‘Gangsters and Gunslingers’ exhibition at the American Museum just outside Bath. Strange to see so many battered objects intimately associated with legendary figures. Dillinger’s fake gun was a particular delight. (Following a … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, collections, exhibitions, Lexington grey, monochrome, museum, objects, pencil
Tagged American Museum, Custer, fake gun, John Dillinger, prison keys, revolvers, The Specials, tipi pegs, Tombstone jail, Wyatt Earp
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Life and death #2 Mostly dogs
More sketches from the recent British Museum Pompeii exhibition. First the famously contorted death-cast of a guard dog, followed by a mosaic door sign (“Cave canem”- beware of the dog) found in the same villa; it’s hard not to see the sign as a portrait … Continue reading
Posted in animals, collections, death, exhibitions, from life, Lexington grey, monochrome, museum, pencil, sculpture, sketching
Tagged British Museum, British Museum Pompeii exhibition, cave canem, death-cast, dogs, guard dog, hounds, House of the stags, hunting, Pompeii, stag, Talking Heads
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Life and death #1
Some sketches of famous finds from Pompeii, recently on show at the British Museum in London. The exhibition contrasted Roman art that celebrated life, with plaster casts that documented agonising deaths. The death-casts are very emotive objects, both expressionist and … Continue reading
Posted in body, collections, death, exhibitions, from life, Lexington grey, monochrome, museum, pencil
Tagged body casts, boxer pose, British Museum, death-cast, dogs, Hercules, mosaic, plaster casts, Pompeii, Roman art, Simon and Garfunkel, the muleteer, urinating
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Toy museum
A couple of sketches from the wonderful and surprisingly large Toy Museum in Sintra, Portugal. The museum houses the personal collection of João Arbués Moreira, who was there on the day we visited, keen to chat about his favourite exhibits and … Continue reading
Posted in airplane, collections, exhibitions, from life, grisaille, Lexington grey, monochrome, museum, objects, Portugal, sketching
Tagged doll's heads, dolls, Edwin Starr, heads, model plane, Sintra, staircase
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Naval gazing
A large eagle(?) sculpture at the Naval History Museum in Venice, a great place for sketching. Four well-lit floors filled with a vast variety of maritime objects; model ships and planes, charts, machine guns, uniforms, 3D maps old old fortresses, … Continue reading
Posted in eagle, exhibitions, museum, Naval museum, urban, Venice
Tagged animal, eagle, museum, Naval history, objects, Venice
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Mostly drawing 