Piano Player, Victoria and Albert Museum
by Pete Hindle
The Victoria and Albert Museum once ran a series of adverts, proclaiming that it was an “ace caff (sic) with quite a nice museum attached“. Since then, it’s become a world-class museum with a really motherfucking swanky café attached.
My plan was that I would hang out during the day, doing some figure studies in the V&A’s sculpture gallery, and then head over to the Science Museum’s “Lates” night in the early evening to catch a lecture. After doing a few pages of chalk studies in my slightly-too-large to scan notebook (doh!) I felt the first pangs of hunger set in. This was bad news, as the V&A café is not only super-expensive and super-swanky, but also not a huge amount of fun to sit in – it’s loud, dim, and a little on the cold side.
However, I managed to get a sandwich and a coffee for under a tenner, and then realised that it was the only place in the museum that I could do a watercolour painting – drawing rules say that only dry media is to be used in the galleries. So in between throwing the sandwich into my mouth, I did a short watercolour of the cafés’ pianist.
Afterwards, I went back to doing some chalk studies. My Edinburgh-based friend Cassandra Harrison had sent the chalk to me, and I urge you to check out her blog to read about her ongoing position as a working artist. I was using them to get a handle on the figure, copying the marble sculpture, and had a really great time – I’ll probably go back next week, with a packed lunch.
This is all very interesting of course, but I want to hear about your Nero experience! :P
Seriously though, that pianist is lovely…& sadly the museums here are always so crowded I avoid them…really should go though…sculpture drawing is nice
If you’re just out and about, drawing people on their mobile phones is good – they tend to stand still when talking, so you can have plenty of time to bang out a few quick sketches. Actually, one of the things that really helped me is drawing my own face every day for fifteen minutes.
What a beautiful artwork at the top of this here post. Brilliant. And as I have seen your early studies I can see what amazing progress you’ve made. Please only read good thing into that statement.
I do! Thank you very much. I just want to keep hammering away at it, and getting more practiced at making images, and I think a big part of that is working out how to keep being productive.