Drawing class, week 9

As research for the project to "create a hybrid" - a human-animal mixed creature (and it seems there could be mechanical parts as well) - we went to the Brtitish Museum to gather some components. What bliss, a whole day drawing in a museum, and meeting up with people at intervals.

I tend to cram a lot of small drawings onto a page ("mustn't waste space" - !)
but by the end of the day was doing just one larger item per page (a breakthrough!).

These items are both in the African galleries - on the left, from Nigeria, a wood statuette which was put in the hands of the deceased so that their spirit would move into it, then taken to the house of a surviving relative; on the right, from Malawi, a masquerade costume in the form of an eland (African antelope), big enough for two men to get into and dance around in - again, it becomes the home of a spirit.Here are a couple of my favourites - the mexican flute ends in a bird's head, which "conveys the animate qualities of the instrument", and the marks (represented with blobs of clay) on the torso below are scarifications; she's also from Mexico. I love the proportions, and the way the tilted ear echoes the slope of the nose.

By the end of the day the items that were interesting me most were those that combined the animate with the spirit realm - in addition to the two African figures above, these gold figures from Colombia and Peru show the flight of the shaman into the "other" realm, represented by the stylised plumage -

It's always fascinating to see what other people have found, and how they use the space on the page -