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04 September 2018

Drawing Tuesday - National Gallery

The National Gallery has a permanent(?) display, downstairs in the Espresso Bar, of Frank Auerbach's drawings of some of the gallery's paintings - this Rembrandt portrait, for instance -
Tempted by the prospect of (mal)lingering over a cup of coffee, I looked hard at Auerbach's drawings, even tried to trace his marks in my mind - and didn't get a lot out of the exercise. I'm still at the stage of art-ignorance that finds them gloomy, ugly, and chaotic. But I do appreciate the kind of looking he was doing.

Without that coffee, and feeling rather gloomy, I went upstairs to look for something cheerful. And what is more cheering than a little dog? Rooms 38 and 33 provided quite a few, some of them so small that I had to use the camera to see them clearly -
The tale is in the tail
(Canaletto, Eton College, 1754)

This one is wearing red ribbons!

...not something you notice at a distance
(Guiseppe Zais, Landscape with a Group of Figures,1770-80)

"The Sporting Contest" is happening on the boats, and the dogs
seem to be having sport of their own. In the painting (1750),
the artist (Vernet) and is wife are escorted by the man in the blue coat

Blackwing pencil (2B?)

Lumograph HB

Elsewhere in the gallery ...
One of Janet B's views of doors and windows
("people kept getting in the way, just standing there")

Carol found a new approach

A Group of Poor Clares, fresco by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, by Janet K
 In Trafalgar Square ...
Joyce was people-watching

Judith captured the entire scene

Sue chose architecture - the bricks of St Martins crypt
Extracurricular activity...
Jo's remembered view of London from a bus in Hainault
(felt pen over candle wax)

Janet K's embroidered magpies - the source is a leather panel
from the walls of a historic house

Judith's fuchsia, knit in wire

Janet B's panel for Nadjlaa's peace quilt, inspired by Iraqi embroidery

Joyce's panel - the olive branch, embroidered in variegated threads

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