I’m an Urban Sketcher…
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Category Archives: museum
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
Oxford Museums #1
During a Summer trip to Oxford we spent an afternoon at the best museum in the world. First there’s a Haida ‘Raven Transformation’ mask from British Columbia; the mask is designed for storytelling dances, and opens when the wearer pulls a … Continue reading
Posted in collections, museum, objects, sculpture, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Edding 30, marker pen sketching, Max Richter, Pitt Rivers Museum, Raven transformation mask, sketch of Haida mask, sketches of guns, sketching in museums, sketching in Oxford, Sywell Aerodrome Museum, urban sketching
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End of the line?
I love a good memento mori, and this is the most striking one I’ve sketched so far. It’s a decommissioned crematorium oven (!) in the museum at Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol, found while on a sketchcrawl there with the Bristol/South … Continue reading
Posted in Bristol, brush pen, cemetery, death, figures, Lexington grey, monochrome, museum, urban sketching
Tagged Arnos vale cemetery, Belle and Sebastian, Bristol South West Urban Sketchers, crematorium oven, fountain pen sketching, graveyard sketching, memento mori, pareidolia, sketches of graveyard statues, urban sketching
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Outdoor museum
The Weald and Downland Museum is a collection of old buildings that have been saved from dereliction and demolition and given a new home. It’s like a much smaller, rural English version of Skansen, the wonderful original ‘open air museum’ in … Continue reading
Posted in brush pen, buildings, drawing buildings, ink brush, monochrome, museum, rural, technique
Tagged drawing of anvils, pavement, rural sketching, sketch of hover-fly, sketch of poppy heads, sketch of shady interior, sketch of smithy, sketch of thatched cottage, Weald and Downland Museum
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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 beachcombing sketch, fountain pen sketching, Gannet beaks, ink-brush for shading, monochrome sketches of birds, sketch of gannet head, sketch of stuffed birds, Stewartry Museum, The Byrds
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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 'Defining Beauty', Belvedere Apollo, British Museum sketches, drawings of Discobolus, Greek sculpture, marker pen sketches, sketch of Sphinx, sketches of Greek statues, sketches of Socrates, The Coral
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Statuesque
A marble Roman mask of Pan in the Cordoba Archeological Museum, a contemporary brass statue of Siva sat on my desk (distant cousins?), followed by a couple of views of a battered ‘crouching Aphrodite/Venus‘ (also in the Cordoba museum). Lexington grey … Continue reading
Posted in coloured ink, coloured paper, Cordoba, Lexington grey, monochrome, museum, objects, statues
Tagged Beastie Boys, Cordoba Archeological Museum, crouching Aphrodite statue, drawing of Shiva, Roman mask of Pan, sketch of Aphrodite, sketch of Pan, sketch of statue of venus, sketches of statues, statue of Shiva
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Roman bridge
Looking across Cordoba’s Roman bridge to the old town from the top of the Calahorra Tower, a paraglider buzzing overhead, and the river running low. I drew one side of the bridge before the other and failed to notice that the projecting stone … Continue reading
Posted in buildings, coloured paper, Cordoba, figures, holiday, Lexington grey, monument, museum, travel, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Calahorra Tower, Cordoba Roman bridge, fountain pen sketches, model of Moorish life, sketch of bridge over a river, sketch of people on bridge, sketches of Cordoba, The Cure, urban sketching, view from Calahorra Tower
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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 Bath gallery, drawing sculpture, fountain pen sketching, George Harrison, King George 3rd, noodlers inks, Sir Cloudesley Shovell, sketching in galleries, sketching portrait busts, sketching technique, urban sketching, Victoria Art Gallery
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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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Mostly drawing 