Tag: galleries

kelvingrove and the west end

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Glasgow Kelvingrove

We took the bus over to the Kelvingrove neighbourhood, in Glasgow’s west end, to see the famous Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. It’s free to go inside, and was a fun (if slightly eccentrically organized) journey through art, design, culture and natural history. The building is beautiful, dating to the end of the Victorian age, beside the large and leafy Kelvingrove Park. Next to the Museum there are lawn bowling greens, build for the Commonwealth Games, that I had seen in Belle and Sebastian’s guide to Glasgow (on YouTube), I guess they come and bowl here from time to time. I think they were playing in Belgium that day so unlikely I’d bump into any of them. Inside there are loads of things to draw, but I wasn’t really going to draw much (the above was mostly an outline with everything else drawn when I got back to the hotel; it was on-off raining that morning). I did however have to spend the time sketching the dinosaur you see below, a Ceratosaurus from Wyoming. They did apparently live in Scotland though, I can’t imagine how I’d feel if this thing turned on me and said “hey what you lookin’ at pal?” in a Glaswegian growl. Probably very scared. That’s my son in the background looking around while I drew.

Glasgow Ceratosaurus Kelvingrove

I really enjoyed the strange floating heads installation in the East Court, by Sophie Cave. I did start drawing the Spitfire that was suspended above us, but didn’t want to hang about too long so gave up. There were some lovely paintings, including a really great Lowrie, and a bunch of pieces by Mackintosh, but I think most of all I liked the big Elvis sculpture, “Return to Sender” by Sean Reed. I thought he was taking a selfie, so I joined in. Fun fact, we were married by an Elvis in Las Vegas.

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The leafy park was a pleasant walk, and we headed past Glasgow University. This would have been a nice place to study. We were hungry for lunch and so headed to the shops in the west end. I was looking for a couple of guitar shops though, where my son and I spent a nice bit of time looking at guitars. The first was CC Music, on Otago Street, they were very friendly in there and I chatted with the guy about California while my son tried instruments. He’s getting really into the guitar now, having first been playing the ukulele. We then went to Jimmy Egypt & Son’s on Great Western Road, a great little shop, where I bought a cool new guitar strap (unfortunately no guitar purchases, not as easy carrying back to the US). We lunched at a great little burger place called Brgr, then walked about the cool little shops. It reminded us a bit of Muswell Hill. We didn’t go to the Botanical Gardens, but we did pass through the university again on the way back to the bus stop. By the way, the dates on all these sketches are wrong, it says 6/25/23 when actually it was the 26th, not sure why I did that. Anyway, since I was in Britain I should have written 26/6/23, but I’m Americanized now ain’t I.

Glasgow St Vincent Street

This was not in the west end, but back in central Glasgow on St. Vincent Street. While the family rested at the hotel, I went out drawing for a while, and for some reason I really liked these roofs. This reddish sandstone is emblematic of much of Glasgow’s architecture, such as the old Evening Citizen offices further down in St. Vincent Place (I wish I’d drawn that building), and of course in Kelvingrove Art Museum. The sky was nice, blue with moving clouds, and as I sketched lots of Metallica fans kept walking past, in their Metallica t-shirts. I supposed Metallica must have been playing somewhere. Actually now I think of it, it was Iron Maiden, not Metallica. I always get those confused. Wait was it Def Leppard? No, it was definitely Iron Maiden. Yes, loads of Iron Maiden fans walking past, in their Iron Maiden t-shirts. I can’t believe I got that wrong, actually. I was in my Belle and Sebastian t-shirt (maybe it Camera Obscura? I’m so forgetful). Not that I felt uncomfortable, it’s not like I was in an Ireland shirt while watching the Orange Order march past. Iron Maiden fans are pretty friendly in my experience, back in the 90s when I would go to heavy metal clubs in London, they were usually the nicest places to be at night. Anyway I thought about going to draw an old Glasgow pub, and nearly sketched a big old place called the Horseshoe, but it was getting on for dinner time. I forget what we ate, some Scottish fast food thing, but we did afterwards finally try that classic delicacy, Deep Fried Mars Bar. It was actually amazing, and even thinking of it now, I want another. Maybe not super healthy, but you don’t come to Scotland to eat super healthy. With that in mind, we retired to the hotel for more Tunnocks Tea Cakes, washed down with Irn Bru. Here’s my drawing of one of those delicious little beauties.

Tunnocks teacake sm

Next up, we drove north, through rain and country. I would like to revisit Glasgow some day, wander about a bit more, chat with some locals in the pub, climb a few more hills, see some music. Another day.

crocker round the clock

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The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento. Click to see it all big and stuff.

The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento. Click to see it all big and stuff.

I like to think of myself as an art lover, an appreciator of fine paintings, a sage head-nodder in the gallery. I sometimes stand for ages looking at small details on masterpieces with a well-practiced face that says “knower of his shit”. In truth I’m always a bit overwhelmed by great epic works of art, in awe of them though I am, and they don’t always inspire me as much as turn me into a scratcher of head. Actually I must confess I do love modern art, and visit the Tate Modern almost every time I go back to London. I did do art for my GCSE back in school and got an A, but when I did it at A-Level I got a D, largely because (I felt afterwards) I spent a lot of time in galleries and not enough time drawing. And in those galleries, my favourite parts were always the gift shop, where you could see all the famous paintings in small postcard size. It’s probably why I draw so small. When it comes to art history, once I get past Picasso, Van Gogh and Mondrian, I always feel like a bit of a beginner. Though I did enjoy learning about the Futurists and their Manifesto when I was at university. So despite doing art every day of my life, I don’t often make enough time to go to galleries.

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Anyway, after living here for almost a decade I finally went to Sacramento’s amazing Crocker Art Museum a couple of weeks ago. It was actually on the recommendation of my seven-year old son (who was still six at the time), who had been there before and wanted to show me the statue of the man with the really small head. The Crocker is great! The older part, housed inside the large mansion you see in my panorama on the left, has amazing interiors, as well as a thoroughly impressive collection of art. The Crocker Art Museum was actually the first of its kind in the Western United States, being established in 1885 by Judge E.B. Crocker and his wife Margaret. The Crockers were one of those  wealthy families that helped shape California in the post-Gold-Rush era; Judge Crocker’s brother Charles was one of the big railroad barons in the late nineteenth century, and going by their portraits these people like to shave their cheeks, but had enormous beards on their chins, predating the 1990s turning-thirty-goatee look by well over a century. The European collection is astonishing, with some oil paintings by Dutch masters such as, um, er (you see? Beginner) depicting canals and light, and one depicting a bishop standing being all holy while a woman calmly squirts milk from her breast directly into his face. Yes, this centuries old painting had me giggling like my fifteen year old GCSE art self would have done. There was some amazing work by Californian artists, as well as ceramics by UC Davis’s own art legend Robert Arneson, plus historical artifacts from across the globe, some of which were thousands of years old. There was some breathtaking modern art, and an exhibition of Mexican art, and indeed we did find the hilarious statue of the man with the tiny head that had delighted my son. It was very funny, but not as funny as the bishop with the milky face.

The large white modern wing, in the right of my panorama sketch, was opened in 2010 and is called the Teel Family Pavilion. My son was excited to tell me that they have tables where you can eat your snacks. His previous visit you see had been as a group with his daycare, and I’m so glad his first visit was, well, with his mates rather than with his parents, because you get a better appreciation for such places with your friends and peers, who can laugh at small heads, than with your boring folks who seem to find amusement in bishops and breasts. We did find the other area downstairs which is dedicated to kids, a whole room full of interactive art activities like a touchscreen to create digital abstract art, tables full of coloured paper and shiny tape where we made some fancy paper airplanes, oh and a large board with shaped colourful magnets where I had the most fun ever, as you can see.

"Do not dare defy me you insolent whelps, for I am Magneto, Master of Magnetism!"

“Do not dare defy me you insolent whelps, for I am none other than Magneto, Master of Magnetism!”

So impressed was I with our afternoon at the Crocker that I came back the next day to sketch the outside. I was inspired, not by the Flemish landscapes, nor by lactose-tolerant priests, nor even by unusually miniscule faces, but by a pencil drawing, an urban sketch of that very mansion. It was dated from the 1880s, I think, and apart from the 21st century appendage it looked pretty much as it does today. After seeing that sketch, I just HAD to draw it myself. It was on a Monday, which was a holiday, the museum was closed so there weren’t a lot of cars parked blocking my view across the street, so I stood listening to the Football Weekly podcast and added to my own burgeoning collection of panoramas.

Visit the Crocker’s website at: http://crockerartmuseum.org/