Drawing Tuesday - Korean gallery, British Museum

Outside the Korean Gallery is a large jar based on a ritual vessel of the Joseon Period (1392-1910) by  Kim Yik-yung (b.1935). It's modelled on a rice measure and made from pure white porcelain clay, slab-built, carved and covered with a clear glaze -

What caught my attention was the overlap of shadows within the bowl, which of course is totally missing from the graphite drawing, but it was possible to add the shadow on the wall. (I did get distracted by the colour of the plinth and didn't read its tonality.)

For the next subject, any or all of these clay vessels with holes in their stems, I dithered considerably about what tool to use -

 Compressed charcoal won -

 And pencil for the quick sketch on the left, the one that had actually caught my eye because of the label inside, in sepia ink: From Korea, 1887. This was a piece collected by William Gowland, a metallurgist who was stationed in Japan for 16 years, and whose contribution to archaeology was considerable.

This vase was a wine container -

 It was made in the 12th century, with iron-painted decoration under a celadon glaze. My rendition of the design involved getting to grips with the new brush-pen -

Practice on magazine page; another attempt on gessoed book-page

Trying to replicate a design from a 3D object is definitely a learning experience - the negative spaces don't work the same way "in the flat" - nor did my brush strokes. The painter of the vase had obviously done this before - the distribution of the elements of the design is masterful.

Another thing about drawing from lovely objects is that it makes you appreciate the skill that has gone into making them. 

I may have mentioned before that a very important and instructive part of the day is looking at what the others have chosen to draw. Janet found a very lively dragon and sketched in an idea of its many scales, before moving on to the next thing -

and before turning to Korean subjects, Sue went next door to the Percival David collection of Chinese ceramics and from the side of a vitrine captured the arrangement of white pots, translating their hollows and shadings with limited colour -

A part of the Percival David collection (via) -

Janet had been dragged away from a pedestal jar but went back later to finish drawing it -