Drawing Tuesday - Ceramics at V&A

One of the delights of the 6th floor ceramics collection is that it's nice and quiet - especially after the busy ground floor of the museum. Another is that there are stools just around the corner as you get out of the lift (turn left after the museum entrance to find the lift). Also, there a various seats along the wall, and this is what I could see from mine -

 Whereas this -

is what I couldn't see, as I was looking sideways on. Take out the shelves and the pots seem to be rising like balloons, or sunken objects filled with air -

The small groupings were where I started, warming up - and thinking about how my fabric/porcelain dipped pots could become installations, groupings.

Then something different - Lawson Oyekan's tall red clay "termite mound" - except it's not, it's from his "Coming Up For Air" series and shows the manner of its building, layers of clay pressed on with fingers and thumbs, the incised with many marks -

 I tackled it with soluble graphite, propelling pencil, indigo pencil crayon, and white pastel, trying to incorporate various types and pressures and speeds of marks, including gestures made from the shoulder  -

As a "picture" of the original, it's all wrong, but as an expressive drawing ... I "like" it.

So many objects to choose from! Here are some chosen (from) by the others -

And here are the drawings -

Jo - water buffalo (and rider) 1750-60

Mags - Chinese ewer with three feet, a mere 3500 years old

Sue - crockery collection (and items in cabinets beyond)

Sue again - we thought the addition of the shelf was a great touch

Cathy - how do you make white shapes look 3D? Other pots are by Lucie Rie

Janet - the curves of a bone china shell, no.1 in a limited edition of 5, Wedgwood

The V&A has a nice timeline of "masterpieces of ceramics" here.