Saturday was the monthly free day at the Denver Art Museum. I decided to brave the crowds and head over there to see about doing some drawing. I've never tried drawing at a museum before. Besides the fact that I am usually there trying to see as much as possible, it just seemed a little intimidating. I've drawn in public plenty of times, but it's a little different in a museum. It's hard to avoid having people see what you're doing, and also, you're there surrounded by real art. But I went ahead and did it anyway.
First, I spent a few minutes with the statue of St. Ferdinand, and then moved into the next room to draw the Virgin of the Apocalypse. As you can see, I also sketched a couple of patrons that passed through.
While I was sketching on this page, a teenage boy walked by and said, "wow, you're really good!" As Morgan said, it's a big compliment when a teenager is moved to say something. Here are some more pages from my day ...
The statue on the right side of the left page is a yali, which is a creature from Hindu mythology. I tried to alternate between drawing overall images and drawing small studies of details (as with the shoe at the bottom of the right page).
These were drawings I did while having a snack on the bridge between buildings of the museum. On the left, you can see the giant whisk broom sculpture that is out in front. It's always struck me as such an odd thing - do you really want it to appear that your city has giant trash that needs sweeping up? On the right-hand page, looking at the Denver Public Library, and up top, a sketch from the Japanese art section of the museum.
And finally, a drawing from outside, where cops were preparing to close down the street for the evening's parade.
It was a good experience, and one I'd like to repeat sometime soon. Aside from the drawing I got to do, I also got to look at my favorite parts of the museum (the Pre-Colombian section and the Asian section). It had been quite a while since I'd gone through the European art gallery, and it was interesting to see the paintings by the Impressionists now that I have been reading a biography of Renoir and learned more about him and his relationships with his contemporaries. I'd like to get around to seeing the Becoming Van Gogh exhibit before it leaves town in January, too.
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