Sunday, January 20, 2013

SKETCHBOOK: "A Knight at the Museum"

Decided to go visit the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City this afternoon.  Today I learned that you can't use ink-pens to sketch in the galleries.  (Thank you, Mr. Security Guard Man...who was kind enough to pull a pencil from his pocket so I could keep drawing the "Bullock Cart" sketch below).  So, my sketches didn't turn out quite the way I would have liked.  The Knight (above) was drawn using a "B" lead pencil.  I needed a much softer lead for the kind of contrast I wanted to achieve.  I pushed my luck trying to throw on some washes...probably not allowed either.

The "Bullock Cart" earthenware sculpture below was drawn mostly with pen...until the nice guard came by.    I finished the sketch with the brown pencil I had on me (and added highlights with a white pencil).

The sketch below was the first drawing of the day...I got to the museum way before it opened at noon.  Apparently, there was no rule about not using an ink pen, as long as I stayed in my car in the garage while drawing.

Friday, January 4, 2013

SKETCHBOOK: "Return To The Museum"


It's been a rather long time since my last post...the holidays were filled with many things other than doing artwork.  So, today, I tried to remedy that with a trip to Kansas University Museum of Natural History.  I love hanging out there...it will take many visits to run out of things to draw!  After four hours of sketching, this is what I ended up with.

Above is the rarely seen "Great Horned Jackalope".  (Yes...this was actually in the museum.)

Below is an American Kestrel in flight (well...mounted in permanent "flight" mode).


Next we have a series of skulls.  There are so many really cool ones there...I got a bit tired, so just got a few drawn.  The ones below are:
1. Western Lowland Gorilla   2. Human   3. Chimpanzee   
4. Bornean Orangutan   5. Rhesus Monkey   6. Black Lemur
The last ones are identified by name.
That's it for this time.  Hope you have a really good year in 2013!