Museum Studies, Pt.1

At the beginning of the year, I wrapped up a period of Figure Drawing, and moved on to the next flower, busy-bee like. Living in NYC, and having just a few months prior finally made it to the American Museum of Natural History, it struck me that it was a gold mine for any illustrator. Together with collections at the Met and a couple other smaller museums, there is such a variety of stuff for an artist to study that I could probably go once a week the rest of my life, draw 2-3 things, and never draw every artifact on display in this town.

One thing I've been wanting to work on is to increase my overall visual vocabulary. By that, I mean my facility to draw a wide range of things. In creating creatures, or designing characters, a fantasy artist has to draw from a wide pool of reference. Animal anatomy in the case of the former, and costume, decoration, jewelry, and etc., in the latter case. I could easily just focus on animals for awhile, or artifacts. But here with the AMNH, I have access to all of it. The animals on display are gorgeous, and they don't move--something I hate about drawings at zoos.

Grizzly Bear, 5.75x8" Pastel pencil on paper (purchase info)

And so, I bought a year membership, and have gone down from time to time this year to draw. A few times, it was seeking specific reference, the other times, just to draw interesting things. So, in this series, I'll be posting those drawings and maybe talking a little about them or the museum or whatever. Mainly, they will be from the AMNH, occasionally, the Met, which has a great collection of armor, among other things. It'll depend on what reference I needed that day, or what whim drove me to.

Whereas I kept my Figure Drawing series to one every 8 posts, so that only one would appear on the front page at once (so that people wouldn't think you were weird looking at a blog with all kinds of nekkid people on it), I'm going to be putting one of these up on the first of the month, every month. I have 6 months' worth of drawings ready to go already, and intend this series to last at least one year, probably two.

(L): Helmet, Iran 19c. 7.75x5.5" ink on paper(purchase info)

I've also kvetched about how or whether to sell my Figure Drawings, which were bound in a book. Not an issue this time, as I've learned my lesson. All of these drawings are done separately, and all of them will be made available for sale. You won't find them on my main galleries, since they aren't portfolio-related images, but they will be linked and you blog readers will get exclusive access to them.

And so, here we go! I hope you enjoy these, as I've certainly enjoyed doing them. There's also a tag for these, if you want to keep up with them in particular.