Exercise 4 - Statues

Back to something more in my comfort zone, though I'm still not comfortable drawing in public. I was in London to see the John Singer Sargent exhibition so the lions in Trafalgar Square were an obvious choice.

Inadvertently I became a tourist attraction in my own right when a lovely lady from group of (possibly Japanese?) schoolchildren spotted me. She positioned herself beside me to watch and waved the children from the group away when she thought they might obstruct my view. When they went I moved down to the Embankment and drew one of the Sphinx from across the road which was technically difficult when the buses stopped in the traffic and blocked my view.

The drawing on the left is in a sort of alcove opposite the Sphinx and was presented by the people of Belgium after the 1914/18 war. They are more contemporary and were holding some sort of foliage or fabric, I'm not sure what it signifies. Here is a link to a photo taken from the front (I drew from the side) This site states that they are holding garlands but they look a bit big for garlands to me. The drawing on the right is Lawrence Olivier and suffered from the fact that I was getting cold...

I found myself back on the Embankment again yesterday so I drew the Frank Dobson sculpture London Pride. I was attracted to the way the sculpture was part of the crowd. Children sat on the figures laps (but disappeared when I sat down to draw) and passers by touched, patted or stroked the figures without stopping or breaking stride.

I found it harder to draw the distorted figures, my pen wanted to make them "normal"