Brooklyn Museum, Wednesday June 26, 2013

Underneath all my whining about the heat the other day I mentioned that I planned on going to the Brooklyn Museum on Wednesday. I was a bit late - subway's fault - and discovered Benedicte and Judy lolling around outside the museum. The morning was quite pleasant. Our first stop was the John Singer Sargent Watercolors. We were under the impression that there would be a docent tour at noon and an artist demonstrating watercolor techniques at 12:20. It turns out that the demo is a film clip and there were numerous docent tours throughout the galleries. You could pick and choose which suited your interests. Very nice. They didn't interfere with each other. We spent quite a bit of time in this exhibition. I sketched a few people while they (and I) listened to one docent talk about Sargent's portraits.

On the same floor (4th) were a few other exhibits that we visited next: "Workt by Hand": Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts. (really nice) Valerie Hegerty: Alternative Histories. (a bit creepy) Unfolding Tales: Selections from the Contemporary Collection. Käthe Kollwitz: Prints from the "War" and "Death" Portfolios. (I love her work - am always drawn to it - was So Happy to turn a corner and see these prints.) I stood in front of one of my favorites and sketched happily, trying to reproduce her work on my iPad.

Next we headed up to the 5th floor. The elevator doors opened onto magic. Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui. Monumental is an understatement. I've seen quite a number of his pieces over the past couple of years but I think these must be the most beautiful of them all. There are also a couple of galleries of his work with wood and chainsaw. Yikes! Hurry Hurry Hurry! Everybody has to see these pieces. In two rooms are videos (4 all together) in which El Anatsui explains and demonstrates the process of creating his pieces. I sketched some of the people taking time to watch the short films.

We continued into another exhibition on this floor: American Identities: A New Look (well worth visiting) That was it for us. On the first floor we quickly went through African Innovations and Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn and checked out the gift shop and called it a day as far as the museum was concerned. There was no energy left for their large Egyptian collection on the 3rd floor. Stomachs were growling. We were pleasantly surprised that, when we exited the museum, we weren't hit with a blast of hot air - the cloud cover had kept the temperatures in the 80's. Phew. We walked a couple of blocks to check out a vegetarian restaurant Benedicte found on line. Looked through the window and decided to try another place we had passed that looked more promising. Much better. The other two had beet soup (!?!) which they agreed tasted "odd", but which both finished to the last drop. I had a Grilled Emmenthaler Cheese sandwich with grilled sweet & sour onions on rye and a big mug of delish coffee. Yum. Ate the whole thing. I sketched the people in front of my table while I waited for my sandwich.

Process: i Pad, Sketch Club and ArtRage apps; Pogo Sketch stylus. All of the above drawings were sketched freehand while in the museum and while at lunch. Color, text, background texture were added later in The Recliner Studio.