090212 National Portrait Gallery

Just up from my previous sketching in Trafalgar Square where I was slowly turning to ice is The National Portrait Gallery, an appropraite venue for sketching people. In fact this is possibly my favourite London lunchtime haunt, I always see the BP NPG Award here every year. In an example of art imitating life imitating art, I drew this young student who in turn was drawing an impressive limewood sculpture. It's called 'Wooden Head' (Andrew Motion's, former Poet Laureate) by artist Jilly Sutton. I always like sketching in museums and galleries, especially in the week, as everyone's at it like it's the most natural thing in the world and few people bother you. Oh, and it's nice and warm too and usually free. As you can see, I employed/recycled the backing cardboard from an old layout pad for this one - you can see the paper overlap at the top and sticker at the bottom. This cardboard is a lovely cool grey, but I guess paper is preferable, otherwise my plan chest will fill up in no time, as it's so much thicker. Materials: Black and white Chinagraph on cardboard. Duration: about 20 mins.