July 20, 2011
I hadn’t meant to spend two weeks in a row with the kids sketching at a museum in the city. We were supposed to photograph landmarks this week! During our trip to the AGO, however, the kids caught the sketching bug. In order to get him to take a lunch break from our sketching last week, I had to promise Tobes that I would take him to the Royal Ontario Museum today to do more of the same. So here we are!
What? No Dinosaurs? My main concern for the day would be to avoid the large groups of children from city camps who had come to beat the excessive heat! So, arriving early, we headed straight up to the popular dinosaur exhibit, which I assumed that the children would want to sketch! After we tooled around in there for a few minutes looking for the giant suspended turtle, the kids proclaimed they didn’t want to sketch dinosaurs, after all.
They wanted to go to Egypt and to Rome — so up the stairs we went. Bea picked the Bust of Cleopatra as her first piece, while Tobes picked a very plain and simple stone “weight” to sketch. Then, we moved on to the Goddess Sakhmet and a diorama-type structure depicting Egyptians at work. They sketched quickly, but rather elegantly. Still, were they going too fast? Weren’t they just plain tired of all of this?
As we stood up to move on, I decided to just let the kids lead me where they wanted to go! It was a bit haphazard. They were still going fast and furious when it came to picking their subjects and sketching…so much so that I really did start to believe that perhaps they were only exhausted and rushing to get through…But, in the end, I had to admit that they just had a lot of interests and a lot of energy to burn!
We had a fantastic time among the Roman busts where Bea sketched Lucius Verus, while Tobes produced the head of a man! Bea also enjoyed sketching ancient pots and vases while Tobes took a look at some tiny “grotesque” heads.
There was some disagreement as to whether or not the temporary Bollywood exhibit was of any interest, so we put this off for a future visit and moved on…
Without flagging, though, the kids sat down to sketch some suits of armour on the other side of the hall. Tobes was excited about a sword and some helmets, while Bea took on the Maximilian Armour.
“Hands down,” and heads, too, my favourite part of the morning was the conclusion, when we braved the student crowds to have a look at wild animals and endangered species. The kids sat together, then, and drew the same sockeye salmon.
And, that was all….or was it? I think we’ll try something different next Wednesday…but if we ever run out of ideas for our Wednesday mornings downtown, there will always be more to sketch!!!!
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