brooklyn museum drawing and symbolism

Brooklyn Museum Drawing session 1/15/15

My second time attending the drop-in drawing class at Brooklyn Museum. It is always a surprise to see what the theme/object is for the month. This time the instructor picked out Chitra Ganesh exhibit (ends July 2015). 

Observation

First we walked around to observe the artwork and talked about what stood out to us. This is part of it. The entire mural was quite large. 

Warm Up

We warmed up with some doodles, drawing what we associate with concept of power. Some people volunteered their doodles and explained why they drew certain objects. Not surprisingly, many people picked money and royalty. My doodle (not shown) included sun, fire, eyes, pyramid, lion, knight in armor/shield/lance, dragon, book, and music. I have to say my recent visit to the Met museum ancient Egypt and Armor room may have influenced some of the above. Heh. 

Cropped View

For the next exercise we had to pick a portion of the mural (cropped part) and draw it. The lesson here was to think about composition. My pick focused on eye and earrings (gears). 

Interpretations

For the final exercise, we were instructed to draw another image based on interpretation and our feelings of the piece. Be creative! I focused on the warmth (fire/sun) and the power of the gaze (eye, look). and some gears and clockwork too.

Later in the session, I drew some additional parts of the mural which included sculpted/molded hands with actual veins. There were also bloody stumps with glittery jewels/beads. There was also a strong leg stepping on a robotic / steampunk universe. Drawing these parts really demonstrated the difficulty of drawing hands and curves of the female body.

I really enjoy the combined art viewing + drawing + interpretation exercise during this session. Next time I want to try this on some other exhibits as well. 

Previous Brooklyn museum drawing session write up here; http://azuleteats.blogspot.com/2014/10/drawing-class-at-brooklyn-museum.html