Visual Research Week
During this week we had to choose a location to create a series of observational drawings. I chose to go to the British museum because I remembered going there last year for location drawing and I created some really interesting images. I also liked the drawings I created in the Louvre and other museums I visited during the summer. I spent two afternoons in the British museum wondering around and drawing objects that grabbed my attention. We had different tasks to complete over this week. The first task was to record and collect our chosen environment. I chose to draw in a concertina book which allowed the images to flow more and avoided boundaries between the pieces.
Things I noticed and ideas I had at the British Museum.
-A lot of people take photos with the objects displayed which was bizarre to watch, I walked past a family arms crossed over their chests having a photo taken with a trio of Egyptian sarcophagi, it was oddly amusing. These impressive historic objects become trivial as people pose for meaningless photos with them.
- I was looking at a stone statue of a lady bending to touch her leg and the interactions people had with it and imagined what it would be like to put these stone human figures in everyday situations
- I was interested by the incompleteness of the objects in the Museum, many torsos with missing limbs and heads with missing bodies, and I wondered what used to be connected. I wondered what would happen if you put a Greeks torso with a Romans head.
Task two was to see what we could remember from our visits and translate them into images and thoughts;
-I remember walking over air vents and feeling sudden temperature changes…
-I remember a mans squeaking shoes echoing throughout the gallery, and making eye contact with him, to which he replied “its annoying isn’t it?”
-I remember the feeling of being watched by hundreds of ancient eyes and passers-by.
After this I started to work with the images I had created and photos I'd taken to create new images, merging different objects and artefacts together to something new. I played around with subtracting the statues and artefacts from the museum to see what effect this had.
Finally I began to create a poster for The British Museum out of the images I had created, to refine them into a more commercial piece. I really enjoyed this project of exploration and I created some images I didn't think I was capable of. I really learned some new skills and loved how one thing led me on to another idea. This is something I'd like to explore more. I want to create more location based drawings.
