A Cool Museum Treasure Hunt

 As you can tell from the group photo in the header, we had a somewhat smaller group in attendance at the museum this time. But it was nice to sketch someplace cool, look at some art and do some people watching. This time Judith set us a small challenge. We were to find places or artworks in the museum that met one of a list of words she gave us. Here is the list: gold, pattern, floral, faces, feather, treasure, hold, mask, struggle, old/new, bright/dark, space, cool, green, awkward, angles. As you look at what people drew, see if you can tell what they had in mind from the list.

Peggy Engel and Judith headed straight for the Egyptian collection. Peggy did something a little unexpected. Instead of drawing the FRONT of the statue of Ramses, she drew the hieroglyphs on the back.

Peggy

Judith

Judith's sketch took in one whole space in the museum complete with the people and the art. Do I see some sketchers on that bench in the back?

Judith

Judith's sketch of the canopic jar includes some of the hilarious questions and comments sketchers are likely to get when they are out and about in a museum.

Susan D

Susan decided "First things, first". She started with the familiar metro stop by the entrance to the Beck building and a bit of ephemera to mark the day.

Susan

Susan moved around the museum a bit collecting a bit of sculpture here, a tapestry there and  some people admiring the work in the Raqib Shaw exhibit.

Barry

Barry worked in graphite to draw this bust. Since we are restricted to dry media in the museum, people have to come up with more creative solutions.

Pay Ling

With that in mind, Pay Ling used watercolor crayons minus the water to draw these tapestries.

Phillip

Phillip also worked in pencil to draw two very different objects. But then he switched to pen for the Greek vase.

Phillip

Have you guessed any of the word prompts yet?

Jenny

You should be able to guess the words that inspired Jenny. And even guess the location if you go to the museum often.

Ouisie

Phillip's daughter Ousie took up the challenge. Always nice to have young sketchers join us.

Decha

Decha also drew an entire gallery view.

Chris

First I drew the gallery view with the classical sculpture and all the receding doorways. Just ink for that one. Then I went over to the Kinder where I found this intriguing wood sculpture set against an interesting wall. I used watercolor pencil for that one.

It was an interesting evening. We didn't do a traditional throw-down, but we did talk about our work a bit. 

We are looking for something a little different for our July sketchout. If you can think of an INDOOR venue it should Free or inexpensive and not too crowded on a Saturday for sketchers. Please make a suggestion on Insta or FB. Several of our leaders will be on vacay, so we will need you to show up and play "leader". It's not hard and I'm sure anyone who had attended a sketchout know the routine. Thanks. We all need to pitch in to keep this going.

BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir - The Hindu Mandir

 

our group

I think the two pictures give you some idea of the complexity of the things we were trying to draw on our visit to the Hindu temple in Stafford. The intricately carved panels of the mandir covered both inside  and outside. It was amazing. In her drawing in the header you can see that  Svetlana did a good job of capturing the many carved columns and the dark, cool atmosphere inside the temple.

The day was hot. So the main job was finding shade long enough to get the sketch. Some folks did tackle drawing the entire temple building.

Michelle 

Michelle was very patient.

Alicia

Decha

Rania

Peter

Jenny

Susan

I think the commonality among these sketches is that they really simplified the very intricate shapes and picked a color palette to pull it all together.  It was a tough subject.

Some folks kept it even simpler.

Mary m

Mary took one portion of the temple and the surrounding greenery for context. Lovely reflections in the pool in the foreground.

Vicki

Vicki went strictly black and white. All light and shadow. It gave her drawing wonderful atmosphere.

Jacklynn

Jacklynn went straight for the watercolor and limited her palette to five colors. Very effective.

And leaving the white of the paper works every time.

Nancy

Using a toned paper is another option. It worked well for Nancy.

Michael

Michael drew from a completely different vantage point. He also limited his colors. You can feel the heat of the sun.

Shakti

Shakti stuck to pen and ink. I like the inclusion of a few people.

Jen V

Jen V worked in pencil. Very simple.

Paul

A nice graded wash worked well for Paul. After that, just a little ink pen and some embellishments.

Sketchers hard at work

 A couple of us drew the carved entrance gates. I just wasn't up to a whole temple.

Jeff

Jeff included sketchers hard at work.

Chris

This way, I could compose a page for text and drawing, something I've wanted to incorporate for a long time.

Fran

And Fran laid out her entire watercolor on site. But, running out of time, she completed the drawing later. As I've said before, this is perfectly ok. (especially with a large and complicated subject)

Judith

Judith went into the temple and drew a sampling of the carved posts she found there.

Bruce

Bruce also went inside and drew a goddess statue.

Nancy

Nancy drew one of the altars to the gods. The addition of the gold and the contrast with the black paper and  Posca markers is effective.

Here are some more of the drawings from both inside and out.

Magda

A collage on a prepared blue background.

Chris

Different color scheme, but along the same lines. A bit of this and that.

Susan

Women in their saris.

Yug

Yug drew some detail. He kept at it even though, as he said, it was hard.

Jen V

A river goddess

Peter

Another goddess

Nancy

Pillar detail.

Here's the throwdown.

our throwdown

Here's to all the hardy souls who stuck it out until the end.  And here's to our gracious hosts at the mandir.

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