Day 5…a day at the V & A…

...well not the entire day, I had to spend 2 hours of the afternoon in the clutches of a torturer (aka the dentist) who gave me the single most painful experience of dentistry I have ever had. But enough about that… I decided since I was in London that I should take the opportunity for some artistic inspiration and go somewhere I’ve never been before – the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was amazing. To begin with, it’s huge and I only probably saw a quarter of what was there. I was a little disappointed that I had missed their exhibition of quilting by just a few days – but there were plenty of other things to see. The statues, frescoes, asian art and theatre arts were all highlights but probably the most amazing things were the huge pillars that filled the whole 6 storey height of the museum.
I loved the fact that you can go round and take photographs – so I did lots of that. I also sat for about an hour and drew one of the statues. Although I’ve done lots of portrait drawing from photographs I haven’t tried drawing a 3D form and with my day of life drawing coming up in the future I thought it would be a good chance to get some practise in! it is Eve listening to the voice of Adam… It was amazing how many people paid an interest to that statue because I was drawing it!! A few people tried to look at my drawing too, but only one sweet old lady managed it – I was almost finished and she told me I’d done an excellent job! Thanks, whoever you are, you made my day!

However, I think my absolute favourite thing there (and the thing I’d want to break in to steal if I was an art thief!) was in the 20th century design room. It was a book about cacti which the artist had cut out pictures from the book, but they still remained attached to the book – I’d definitely like to have a go at making one of these!