Drawing Tuesday(s) : Horniman and Design Museums and the Mosaic Rooms

 I've got so far behind with blogging  that I'm  catching up with 2 different museums   on   Drawing Tuesday  visits  a fortnight ago and yesterday.

  2 weeks ago   we were at the Horniman museum   where I retreated from the hordes of excited small children to the relative peace of the balcony with old-fashioned cases of fossils and corals.  I've drawn them before at the Beaney and Natural History Museum, while fascinated by their intricate diversity I always seem to forget how devilishly difficult they are to draw!  Although I brought a whole array of  drawing materials with me , I end up using just a 0.1 unipen and a small amount of pencil.

These are best I think,  leaving space and only adding a suggestion of detail

Yesterday  we were at the  Design Museum in Holland Park ( which I haven't been to since it was the Commonwealth Institute) That whole area around South Kensington, Kensington, Earls Court, I knew very well when I was at university  at Imperial College in the early 1980's  but   of course its changed a great deal in that time .
 On this visit the children were older ,quieter, and very well informed, telling their parents and grandparents all about 3D printing (  which was the gallery I ended up in )

 This 'Femur Stool'  had  coral like properties ( off white and textured) - for all that it  was designed around the user, it didn't look very comfortable!

 The patterning of the texture looked very interesting although difficult to see in the low light levels.

 We had lunch outside in a secluded seating area ( improvised in some cases  )  and  as we were more spread out than we usually are sketchbooks needed 'offering up' to the camera for  blog photos.

 On my way from Earls Court Station to Holland Park I'd noticed what looked like an interesting exhibition ' Shift' at the 'Mosaic Rooms' so a few of us went there afterwards on the way back to the tube.  

  The intricacy of the 'Islamic Tiles' made from dyed sand ( designed to be swept away at the end of the exhibition  as shown in the accompanying film)  by Dana Awartani  was stunning ,  contrasting with the earthier handmade textures in sand clay and cloth of Zahrah Al-Ghamdi . Both however reference the loss of old skills , cultural identity and material heritage.

 After Margaret, Janet and myself had collected our artworks from the  cabinets  of the READY/ MADE exhibition at City Lit ( my submission was 'Mussel Interior' ) we rewarded ourselves with coffee and cake at LSE on Aldwych ,  a sweet bargain at £3.65. And we couldn't resist making artistic arrangements and taking photos.