Museum Sketching

This week I took a trip to Fort Worth's well-known Kimbell Art Museum. I had seen the main collection back in 2019, as well as their special exhibit on Monet's later years. It was pretty fascinating and a really neat trip. This time I went with the goal of sketching one of the pieces. I walked through one of the sections that had a wide range from old sculptures to medieval artwork, from Rennaissance paintings to Impressionist era, and even some more modern works from the Cubism time period.

Here were a few pieces that I particularly enjoyed.

The piece I decided to sketch was titled Miss Anna Ward with her Dog, painted by Joshua Reynolds in 1787. The information block on the painting commented that Reynolds was especially talented at portraying children's innocence and grace in his pieces. That was part of what stuck out to me - I loved the childlike relationship between the girl and her dog and the beautifully soft brushstrokes and lines that add to her gracefulness. Even the background is soft, which adds to the whole effect. I took note of this as I worked with different textures in my sketch.

I only used a pencil and my sketchpad for this sketch, starting very lightly with the most basic forms. This helped me make sure my layout was accurate before I started to add more detail with darker strokes. Once I was sure of the layout, I redrew the edges of the shapes more intricately, and continued by adding details within the shapes. To finish, I simply darkened the more shadowed areas to give greater contrast and depth to the sketch.

I haven't done too much actual sketching with graphite, so this was good practice for me. I learned to pay attention to the textures and achieve a similar texture with my graphite pencils without going into photographic detail. I also had to focus on creating contrast with the values so that it wasn't a big gray mess. It was great practice for drawing freehand from sight without measuring tools as well.

Something else I enjoyed about the afternoon there was hearing what other people had to say about the art. There was one very talkative group of older ladies who were very interested in the art, and I loved seeing what caught their attention - "Look at the hair in this sculpture, it's so detailed!" I caught some of one group's tour guide explanation as well. She stopped at a portrait of a woman and explained that in that time period it was common for a young woman to have her portrait done right before or right after she got married. This way, since it was very common for women to die in childbirth, her children would have a way to remember her. She noted also that the figure was slightly elongated to make up for the foreshortening when it would be hung high up on a wall in a great room. All this was pretty fascinating to listen to, and I would love to do it again sometime!