Saturday at the Met
Today's NYC Urban Sketchers outing was at the Met! I thought I might skip sketching for a bit and take in some of the exhibits, but I changed my mind as I kept finding fun things to draw! There's also something great about making art where art dwells.
I started in one of my favorite halls, which turned out to be a good choice because it was nearly empty when I entered and was getting busier as I was leaving. I visited later in the day and it was packed! I did the underlying pencil drawing in the hall and I watercolored on lunch in the cafeteria; unsurprisingly open containers of water and watercolors are banned in the galleries.
Since I was only drawing in the galleries, I was able to do another drawing before lunch (colored on lunch and while waiting to share with other sketchers at the end of the day). I walked across to the other side of the museum to another gallery with awesome natural light. I was especially happy with the colors in this one!
For the second half of the day I decided to settle in and just do one pencil drawing. This one ended up being an unintentional sociological experiment...at the beginning only kids were stopping to watch but as I continued more people watched. Several people also took photos of my sketching (most asked if it was ok which is appreciated!). Most people who stopped either told me they loved my work (also appreciated) or to tell me how much they love the sculpture and love seeing it being appreciated (best).
On one occasion, a woman stopped and asked if she could "tell me something." Of course I said she could, because how else does one respond to that? She proceeded to tell me that an angle was off. I was surprised by this, because in my almost full year of sketching in public, no one has ever pointed out my mistakes. I usually feel pretty aware of my mistakes, and there always seem to be a plethora to be aware of! My startled response was, "oh, I know it's inaccurate," and was actually kind of surprised as to which mistake she chose to point out; there's several others that I think are more noticeable and problematic. Even though I'm usually open to critique and negative feedback, I felt like it was really inappropriate to walk up to a sketcher who is A) not taking a class and just doing this for fun and B) nearly finished a drawing and at the point it's obviously too late to change anything, just to tell them what's wrong with their work. It's like, I can't do anything about it, do you want a cookie for finding my mistake? It was an odd interaction...I wonder if she's an art teacher? She interrupted a woman and her daughter who had stopped to admire the drawing and watching their faces during this interaction was priceless!
I did a little more work on the drawing when I got home, I was a little rushed in the end. Overall happy with how she turned out! I'd love to go back on a weekday morning when it's a little less crowded and give it another go. I originally wanted to just draw from the arms up, directly in front of the sculpture, but felt for a busy gallery that position would be obtrusive to other museum-goers so I put myself off to the side a bit and decided to go for the full figure. Another time! All in all, alovely day of sketching :)
