Drawing Tuesday - V&A ceramics galleries

It was only a few minutes after opening time when I reached the (vast) ceramics galleries, but already the artist in residence (Amy Jane Hughes) was hard at work -

So much to see ... did you know that porcelain has a tendency to slump, as this vase shows -

This kiln-waster (Delft, 1665-70) is a spectacular disaster and I wanted to look at it closely

but immediately let myself be distracted by the reflections of the rows of teapots behind me -

and started out by warming up with some blind drawing of the shapes of these blue-and-white objects

then filling in the background of the page with elements from the decoration -

Back to the 34 plates gone so wrong, with bits of kiln furniture among the heap -

Was this all the work of one painter?

My first pencil drawing was going nowhere, so I started another on the opposite page, adding torn scraps of tissue paper to represent the unglazed clay -

A changed point of view brought the back into focus, quite quickly drawn with pen over the original attempt -

With not a lot of time left, I was looking for "something quick" and found these African pots -

A water pot from Nigeria, possibly Igbo, 1900-1924

and also from Nigeria (Bida, Nupe people) another water pot from the same era.

Elsewhere, Jo ensconced herself in the study collection -

and really got to know this dark pot (apologies for the bad photos - all that glass makes it difficult) -

using various media to get the dark shiny glaze and the reflected highlights ... not easy ...

Caryl was quite taken by this piece by Michael Flynn, "Angel/Flight" (1988)

She did two versions, first the small one, then the larger one in mere minutes - a speed made possible by the close observation earlier -

Nathalia drew a piece by Bernard Leach and Alison Britton's "Big White Jug" (see it, and six responses to it, here) -

 Sue started with the yellow Chinese roof tiles, but found it hard on the neck -

and switched to pieces at eye-level, "Blue Form" by Wouter Dam, 2004 - a piece thrown in sections -

The blue piece was just visible from where I'd been sitting, thinking how nice it would be to draw those clean white shapes rather than the chaos of that kiln-waster -