So many, so sudden! However the museums are making extra things available online, so we need not be deprived of lovely objects to look at and learn about.
Drawing Tuesday will continue, online too. The idea is to make a "space" for drawing every week, so on Tuesdays we'll be spending 10.30-12.30 in the comfort of home, able to use waterbased media and charcoal (not possible in an actual museum) and saving all that travel time. Afterwards, we share the results by email. I gather the images and stories and put them into a blog post.
This week the theme was TABLECLOTHS, taken from a random page I looked at while making a (partial) list of interesting museums to visit online.*
The cross-stitch motifs on a chinese tablecloth brought to mind the symmetrical motifs, made from the centre outwards, in many cultures' textile traditions, and particularly the one I'd stitched at "the workshop that changed my creative life" [long story, maybe later...] at the Museum of Mankind in 1989, part of the glorious Palestinian Costume exhibition.
It didn't go as hoped, but at the end of the session I felt more comfortable making marks with the various brushes I tried. Maybe later I'll do something more freeform with "cross stitch" in my sketchbook. Or on fabric?
From Carol: I would not have thought about this family heirloom which has not been looked at for many years if it wasn’t for drawing Tuesday ‘online’
A rather twee 30 ladies in crinolines. Started by my Mum in the 1940’s she said whilst waiting for Dad to pick her up to go out dancing. Finished (rather badly) by me in the 1970’s. It was my first embroidery project and my stitching and choice of colours was poor but I did not have the heart to throw it away as I remember Mum’s patience with me as I clumsily finished her work. The challenge with the drawing was to make it look like stitching.
From Judith: The oilcloth on my kitchen table. I’m getting used to my Christmas present inktense pencils, colour changes quite a bit when wet! Took ages but therapeutic.
From Joyce: I’ve taken a rubbing from a crocheted tablecloth made by my Mum.
She crocheted one medallion on her journey to work from Farnworth to Bolton in the war. There are 144medallions. She then joined them together with crochet.
The embroidery is from a tablecloth made by my mother-in-law, sadly no-one in the family knows anything more about it.
From Michelle: here's my crazy tablecloth design
From Sue: I got up this morning & felt the need to tweak & tidy the scruffier parts to this crocheted piece. It was so complicated - looked like I’d had one too many!
Here it is once more - could do better I’d say! Joyce’s idea to do a rubbing was more sensible!
From Janet: Here is my contribution chosen for the challenge of drawing checks. A present from my friend Myra more than 40 years ago.
From Mags: Despite my mum being a very keen embroiderer ( or because she's rather be stitching something more interesting) all the tablecloths and napkins in our family were always seersucker ( no ironing required !!) I have however been buying linen tablecloths for quite a while, some of which I've overdyed with indigo. I raided my stash ( which is not small ) and tested out rubbings with coloured crayons on abaca tissue - the cutwork/ drawnwork examples worked best and I like how the rubbing picks up the texture of the linen itself . I love the variation in stitches on the huge embroidered cloth but the thought of trying to draw even a small section of it was too daunting. I can't imagine how long it took to sew.
From Najlaa: The cloth is perhaps Indonesian.
Today's theme is CHAIRS. Do join in!
Some links to online collections (slightly leaning towards ones I've visited in past travels)
* You'll have your favourite museum(s) that we've visited. Here are some more, to get us started on the international circuit. Some I follow on Instagram, others are totally unexplored.
https://www.metmuseum.org/ - Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY - their online Timeline of Art is quite famous, and there are virtual guides and exhibitions online, as well as the collections themselves. They have a hashtag on IG for drawings made from their collections, #MetSketch -
https://asianart.org/ - San Francisco Asian Art Museum; http://www.
https://moa.ubc.ca/ - Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver (built shortly after I moved to UK)
https://www.moma.org/audio/ - something to listen to as you draw, stitch, whatever - from the Museum of Modern Art, NY (https://www.moma.org)
I've always wanted to go to the Smithsonian (Washington DC), and am amazed that it's actually 19 museums! https://www.si.edu/
One of my favourite museums in Cologne is the museum of medieval religious art - https://www.museum-schnuetgen.
There are a few museums in Berlin to look round - https://www.smb.museum/en/
