margaret-cooter: Drawing Tuesday

The meeting place was the cast courts, because of the splendid stuff they contain ...

But the other cast court is being renovated, with screeches and bangs that reverbrate disturbingly, so we each found somewhere else to go.

I stayed for a while and took some photos - the next is a closeup of the one above, wonderful cascades of cloth -

... and Ms Threeface is at one corner of the monument -

A convenient bench gave this view -

... and again the camera was useful for "seeing" the details

and pulling the upper areas into focus -

Result, a page of careful looking at shapes and patterns, and of trying to get the column to fit on the page without measuring (third time lucky). Measuring with a pencil held at arm's length is a good check, but as a tutor in some class said, "try it by eye first". That helps with getting the proportions intuitive - you do a lot of checking against what's nearby, and switch back and forth with the negative spaces.

Finally fleeing the noise, I went to the Chinese room and was captivated by the colours of these vessels, part of the emperor's rituals to ensure that heaven and earth didn't get out of synch.

The museum's website puts it better: "Chinese emperors of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) performed rituals every year at the Altars of Heaven, Earth, the Sun and the Moon. The rituals were considered essential for the well-being of the empire. Porcelains of different colours were placed at different altars. Dark blue was used for the Altar of Heaven, yellow for Earth, red for the Sun and light blue ( 'moon white') for the Moon. While performing the ritual the emperor would have worn a sacrificial robe of a matching colour."

Miniatures - Ming dynasty (1368-1644) tomb furniture included garment hangers and a tower stand -