Day four of the Summer School saw a bit of a change of plan. We had been planning on going to Highgate cemetery but given the rain we had on days two and three, we sought shelter and so headed to the Grant Museum of Zoology. In the end it turned out to be a lovely day, but Grant’s is one of my favourite places in London so I was very happy we ended up there.
The Grant museum is part of UCL and hosts a fantastic collection of zoological specimens. The most celebrated is the jar of moles (yep, a jar of moles), but they also have bones endangered and extinct animals such as Tasmanian Tiger or Thylacine, the Quagga, and the Dodo alongside a hundreds of other interesting skeletons and jars. I particularly like the skeletons of the bats and flying foxes as they look like little humans but with wings, almost like angels (or demons!)
We were very lucky as the curator of the museum was prepared to take some specimens out of the glass cases for us so we could work on more detailed drawings. We got to select and as a group chose a deer skull with fantastic twisted horns, one of those bat skeletons and a tiger skull.
I spent ages drawing the deer skull. After my confidence boost drawing the real human skulls at Bart’s Pathology Museum, I felt that I wanted to continue with a longer observational drawing, rather than doing lots of quick sketches around the museum. I also realised that I find it so much easier to draw when I am not looking at something behind glass – you really get to see all the little details and changes in texture. I did also attempt to draw the bat, but it was way to complicated and I hadn’t left myself enough time.
As well as completing our own drawings we also played the surrealist game Exquisite Corpses (where you draw part of a drawing, cover it and pass it on to be added to by someone else, at the end the full drawing is revealed). We used the animals in the Grant collection to inspire our own weird and wonderful mythical beasts! They came out looking brilliant and it was really fun to do something collaborative where you weren’t worried about the outcome.
Today was the day I felt the most confident in my drawing. I think this was from a combinations of things such as having fantastic objects to look at up close and having time to spend on my drawings, but also that I have been practicing and developing my skills for nearly a week now. I really feel like my drawing is improving over the Summer School as I am investing time in practicing the skill. Can’t believe it is nearly over!
I haven’t been to the Tower since I was a little girl, when my mother took me. Apparently I went a bit strange when standing on the spot where Anne Boleyn was killed and started speaking about ‘having been there before’. Either I was locked in the tower in a past life, or was just a slightly creepy child. I had always wanted to go back (maybe I would remember something else?!) but it is pretty expensive and always packed, so I never got round to it. This meant that being taken there was as part of the Summer School was very exciting.
I am a bit of a history geek (especially when that history is dark and macabre) so I loved that we were able to join a tour. We followed a Beefeater while he explained about each of the towers and told tales of executions gone wrong and heads on spikes – it was brilliant! I also found out that the Tower used to be used to keep all the animals that were given to the Royal Family. Once they were given an elephant and having never seen one before, the guards had no idea how to look after it. Thinking that a ‘royal’ animal should be treated like royalty they gave him meat and bread to eat and port to drink! He died pretty quickly (no surprise!) There are now fantastic wire animal sculptures all around the tower, to commemorate this history.
I loved exploring the collections, looking at the armoury and instruments of torture. I drew a few objects, however with the number of people around I didn’t want to stop for long so only managed very quick sketches. None of these were great drawings but are perfect as visual notes, to remind me of what I saw.
After a quick break for coffee and dinner, it was time to re-join Art Macabre for an evening life drawing salon. This was not exclusive to the Summer School, but we were all invited along. The night was themed around Josephine Baker – the siren of the tropics – and we had the incredible dancer/choreographer Brooklyn Sanchez channelling the spirit of Josephine.
As well a recreating some typical Josephine Baker poses, Brooklyn also performed a unique routine inspired by Josephine’s infamous banana skirt dance, but with a 21st century twist. A jazz soundtrack and delicious tropical cocktails from the bar helped to create a fabulous exotic atmosphere (even if the very British rain storm outside tried it’s best to dampen it!).
It is an incredible collection of all sorts of weird and wonderful medical specimens. I could have spent the whole week just drawing and exploring in there! Whilst they are not open daily (it is still used by medical students) they do open for special events and I would really recommend going (coming up is 
I really enjoyed drawing the skulls. Having looked at reproductions the day before I was amazed at just how much detail and different textures were on the surfaces of each. We were given a couple of hours to draw and were therefore able to spend longer on our drawings. In fact, I only completed 2 drawings in that time. I got so into looking at them and really enjoyed spending a bit more time to work into my tone and texture. I was really pleased with both of the drawings I produced, which gave me a lot more confidence in my work.
I didn’t do any drawing in the Reading Room, although some people did. Instead I used it as an opportunity to find out more about things that had been discussed during the course so far, or look at things that I find inspiring. For me this meant books about cults, alternative religions and memento mori. I left with my mind spinning with ideas and inspiration! Such a fantastic day.
Nikki set us the challenge of drawing a skull, something beautiful, something repulsive and something to scale. I quickly found a skull and sketched it (very roughly). I then found a strange double baby head thing, with roses where the mouths should be. It was repulsive, but also beautiful. I was really drawn to it although not sure why! Babies are lovely, roses are gorgeous and it looked like it was make of porcelain but all together it was just horrific. I decided to draw that too, along with a taxidermy mouse in a Santa hat with a toy reindeer (of course!) and a rare orchid.
We had a quick break for tea and cake (which was covered in chocolate skulls and bones) then, did a final drawing, this time with a life model, holding a skull – of course! Now, if I found sketching skulls difficult, the life drawing was so much harder. It really is a skill you need to practice and it was a year since I last attempted it. It was really enjoyable, as working from the figure is so inspiring, however the resulting drawing was not good! But then, this was just the first day and it takes a while to get warmed up…
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