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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A Morning at the Menil

Sketchers hard at work at the Menil

We were lucky to have a sunny day that didn't get hot too early along with some lovely shade outside the Menil. Normally, when we visit the Menil Collection, we draw the galeries and art inside. This time, our sketchout in cooperation with Watercolor Art Society Houston was on the grounds and in the neighborhood.

The Group

This was a well-attended sketchout. I counted 30 people. That might be a new record.

Richard

 

 Richard gave a brief demo for anyone who wasn't   familiar   with the tricks   and tips of   urban   sketching. It's always interesting to hear how   different sketchers work.

  Then the group spread out over the grounds and   around the neighborhood. The result was that we   got  a little bit of everything in our throwdown.

 

Of course, there were people who wanted to try the building itself from different angles. You can see Karen's sketch in this month's blog header.

Richard

Richard challenged himself to a corner perspective. Always tricky.

Bruce

Michelle

Bruce and Michelle concentrated on the center of the building and the entrance. Two very different views of the same subject.

Shakti

Shakti zoomed right in on the people going into the museum. The different surfaces are handled really nicely.

Peter

Peter picked an unusual side view of the building and caught some sketchers at work.

Sketchers at work

Here are Peter and another sketcher hard

at work in the generous shade. Always nice to

have some cover available.

Many of the sketchers chose to draw the trees. There are so many really old, beautiful trees on the grounds.

Svetlana

Svetlana worked in colored pencil to draw the lovely, enormous Water Oak that anchors the corner of the lot.

Susan

Susan brought the same tree to the front of her sketch and put the building in the background.

Emily

Emily framed the view between two of the enormous branches in soft, almost abstract watercolor.

Chris

I loved that same perspective with the large branches dripping with Resurrection Fern. I found Cathi Bruhn hard at work.

Barbara

Barbara drew one of the Magnolia trees.

Laura

Laura picked the younger tree for color and the older tree for that bark texture.

Paul and Sabrina went over to the Menil Drawing Institute and drew that building.

Sabrina

Paul

A few sketchers wanted to include the sculptures scattered around the grounds.

Doreen

Cathi Bruhn

And oh look! While I was drawing Cathi, she was drawing me.  

My first sketch was of the Broken Obelisk in front of the Rothko Chapel. A peaceful spot I had all to myself.

Chris

Another group moved out into the neighborhood to draw the various buildings and small cottages.

Teagan

Mary M

That's Michelle on the porch of the bookstore.

Joel

A contrast of the old and new from Joel.

Siao

Cottages and cars under the Sycamore trees from Siao.

Jacklynn

A small cottage with a tricky roof angle drawn by Jacklynn.

We did a throwdown and some of us went out to lunch.

throwdown

We welcome the WASH members to join us anytime on our sketchouts. If you are one of the over 100 people on our email list and you have not been to a sketchout in a while, what are you waiting for? Details will be on Facebook and on Instagram. Please pass the link to the blog along to anyone you think might enjoy it. Until next time...