Saturday 25 February 2012

DEAD,NOW

Museums are fun. Here's a massive post with some drawings I've done at various museums in London the past few months.

THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

This is my favorite. It's in a beautiful building, it's full of beautiful natural things, and its attatched to a gigantic research centre which you can tour part of, and there's a giant squid. A GIANT SQUID. Anyway, when I went I was drawing animals.. and it was a saturday so it was HEAVING.









BIRDIES. I enjoy listening to parents explaining taxidermy to kids. I enjoy even more the kid's muddled comprehension of what they're seeing. They know what a living bird looks like, they know what a dead bird looks like. But this is .. both? I heard one kid say 'Look mum, this one's dead' pointing at a splayed out specimin with all it's feathers taken off (one that actually looked like it was dead) 'Well.. they're all dead'.



Red Panda, some kid was watching me draw this and his dad said 'If you practise you'll be able to draw like that one day!' I felt like crying and hugging him. I managed to restrain myself.



This Kudu looks a bit miffed, but so would I if I'd accidentally skewered a Swallow-tailed Flycatcher.





I drew a lot of goaty-creatures legs and horns that day, I'm slightly less obsessed with drawing Satyrs now but I'd probably be better at it..

THE IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM

The lifts in this place were made by a company called 'Schindler'.. SCHINDLER'S LIFTS. Tickled me pink while I was on my way to see an exhibition on crimes against humanity.







The amount of bored schoolchildren in this place is unreal. Go there on a weekday and it feels more like a classroom than museum, you can hear little boys discussing their favorite bombs and see highschool girls posing next to Nazi uniforms. If you're like me (not particuarly interested in modern warfare) its worth going just for that. And Schindler's lifts.

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY


Portraits of unknown people.


Fancy gentlemen.


The fancy frames in this place are eternally vying for attention with the actual paintings, maybe they'll win one day.


Busts, busts. Busts.

THE BRITISH MUSEUM

I had a bad day here, lost my pencil case. Got tired of being scared at. And what is with people taking facebook photos of HUMAN REMAINS? Then again I was drawing them and it felt OK to me. Maybe there's no difference.






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