Study visit British Museum Drawing Collection.

Who knew that the British Museum holds the national collection drawings? or that Bridgit Riley cared enough about drawing education to be involved with setting up drawing workshops there.

I was lucky to be part of a group of OCA students who went to the museum on Friday to examine drawings from artists as diverse as Goya, Raphael and De Kooning. The visit was well organised and attended by a students from writing and textiles as well as fine art so there was not pressure to complete the perfect drawing.

The curator discussed the drawings then we had time to study and  draw from them. She included this study by Bridgit Riley which is absolutely captivating in real life.  The Guardian has this review of her work from an exhibition last year from which I found the study.

 I drew this from a sketch by Adolphe Menzel who was a very popular artist in 19th century Germany. His drawings are beautiful and the way he slotted them together to fit them on a single sheet of paper has a very modern feel.

 This is a sketch of part of a large (A2 or A3) drawing by Ariane Laroux who is a French artist (website here) who draws people as she interviews them. She uses lots of short choppy lines to make shading and depth. I can only find information about her in French but she has some work in an exhibition later this year in Poole of work from the British Museum Collection.

There were some drawings by Frank Auerbach outside the study room and one of his sketches inside. I do like the energetic way he uses charcoal in his bigger drawings to sort of carve out his figures and I am starting to appreciate his landscape drawings. I am interested in the way he documents the same area of Primrose Hill and how this might relate to my approach to my parallel project.