On the weekend Janet and Leon (my hosts for the week) do a crossword puzzle together and so, Saturday morning i found them at the breakfast table, heads together, immersed in word puzzle. Thinking “how lovely, how intimate, how mind-expanding” (mindless enthusiasm is my natural state) I solicited Leon’s help to do the above crossword puzzle another day, and here it appears, pasted onto a very unflattering sketch of my mentor, a brilliant pipe smoking Polish man (oh, and handsome too) whose first and last names require tutoring if one wants to pronounce them correctly. On this piece you will also find the names of the cats who presume to own the house and every surface in it.
The National Gallery of Art on the Capital Mall requires good walking shoes and stops at the cafe and store to recharge and spend money (entrance is free!) Sarah joined Janet and I for the day and watched as I sketched this at lunch and later joined me to do her own sketch.
We enjoyed wandering through the exhibit “In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet” hooked up to the audio guide. I took the photo below at the start of the exhibit.
An oil painter today would find this 19th century equipment very familiar.
What is this angel doing? Who knows? When there’s only one place to sit and rest one’s feet, what can one do but sketch the back of an angel wrestling a . . . .bass fiddle with wings and a tail? (Is this a myth?)
I don’t really have words for that experience of seeing the originals of famous paintings you’ve seen in so many books, posters, walls, everywhere! In the museum store I grabbed a set of Artist Block Magnets just before they closed. This one, with an artist self portrait, was my favorite quote:
Just dash something down if you see a blank canvas staring at you with a certain imbecility. You do not know how paralyzing it is, that staring of a blank canvas which says to the painter: you do not know anything. -Vincent van Gogh
Next: Gardens and more art museums
If you’re starved for more Fantascapes, make sure you visit Miki’s blog. She’s way ahead of me, spinning out gorgeous fantasy-scapes almost every day.
Your drawings are so much fun! What are you two using for your fantascapes, acrylics?
Wonderful sketches, Susan! I love so much to see all that, I feel as if I had been with you…
I almost never go to Museums, i don;t know why. Somehow the word museum evokes boredom in me, but i am surely wrong.
Anyway, one of the rare times I went to a museum, an art Museum in Basel, Switzerland, about 12 years ago, I saw for the first time an original painting from Van Gogh, one of my favourite painters. I don’t remember the title, but it was a young woman sitting at a piano. I instantaneously started to cry, it was such a deep emotion to see it, and to imagine Van Gogh’s hand painting it… I had the feeling that he was present there! A divine moment!
Nevertheless: I still don’t go to museums… what a silly girl I am!