Showing posts with label drawing in a museum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drawing in a museum. Show all posts

Chicago Trip, Part Two: Art Institute of Chicago / Gustave Caillebotte

Chicago has an amazing (and ginormous) art museum named the Art Institute of Chicago. I've visited it before, but not for quite some time, and I forgot how big it is and how one can find something from any time for any mood and interest! We spent around 5 hours there, and apart from a quick lunch all this time was packed! 

But the highlight was the current exhibit of Gustave Caillebotte - one of my art heroes! To see so many works in one place, experience in person slight variations of color, be in the presence of expressive brushstrokes - this was a gift! I am fascinated with the way he worked with light, how he builds compositions. With conversations between bodies in his art, with integration of people into environments, and all of that with the simultaneously serious and playful feeling that comes from his works! He lived a short but very interesting life, left a large city to live in a suburb, and stopped trying to get into the Art Salon but continued painting. He was a gardener, worked on textile design, collected stamps, designed and built yachts, sailed them, and he supported other artists. What a life! 






Winter Europe Trip: Madrid Museums

We visited a whole bunch of museums and historical sites on this trip, however museums of Madrid were the ones I spent the most time preparing for and where I drew the most. 
In Prado, I was excited to find a Museum guide and map in Ukrainian and marked my plan for everyone in our group so that they would know where to find me (follow along!). Goya is always a hit and this time I went not from earlier works to the late years but in the opposite direction and it created even a bigger contrast and wonder. In the Naval Museum, I drew some figureheads and spent my time finding the best depiction of the sea (there were quite a few spectacular ones!). We also went to the home and museum of my art hero Joaquin Sorolla, found his works in two more museums, and visited a little but fantastic exhibit "Sorolla's Summers" on its last day in Madrid. I ended up painting a "bunch of Sorollas" in my sketchbook as I could not stop thinking about all the light that he saw! 

Sketchbook #97: Amsterdam

These are miscellaneous bits and pieces - about biking, Haarlem, visiting museum and drawing people on the way (that last portrait is volunteer from the windmill museum :)
Next post will be about Prague!
Sketchbook #97: AmsterdamSketchbook #97: AmsterdamSketchbook #97: AmsterdamSketchbook #97: Amsterdam