The beginning of day 2 of the Naples Inventory workshop was spent in Museo di Zoologia in Naples – a museum so hidden that I doubt I would have found it even if I was looking for it. We had a look at Franco Lancio´s exhibition of three little zen animals, Tza, Tzi and Ki, that he found and put together. Then Federico Gemma asked all the participants to capture eight different species of animals in just under two hours, in different techniques. I´m not a fast sketcher, but I managed, even if I had to hurry with that poor ermine. And I even squeezed in a ninth, the caracal, just before leaving. 🙂
The afternoon was spent at Museo Archeologico, where Caroline Peyron had us working in layers again. She brought us to the “scrap statue room” (feels a little blasphemous to call it that, but it seemed to be just that – the place where they put all the statues that are broken or misplaced, or just don´t fit in the exhibition). I found these two guys standing behind one another, and was intrigued by their difference in scale, and the drama of the blue guy sort of trying to stab the innocent looking fella. 😉
Then added another layer when we entered the actual exhibition – the incredibly calm faces of two marble women.
Another try:
And then another one, just because I couldn´t get enough of the marble ladies. They looked so serene and still so empty with their blank eyes…
In the evening, we went to see a tableaux vivants and live sketching performance by Teatri 35 at Riot Studio, where three actors made the paintings of Caravaggio come alive. The performance was very beautiful and dramatic, and constantly moving – and of course, the point of us being there was to sketch the whole thing. All I can say is that it is INCREDIBLY difficult to draw fast moving versions of Caravaggio´s paintings.
All drawings drawn on 22 x 15 cm pages of a Stillman & Birn alpha series sketchbook, using various ink pens, pencil, fountain pens, coloured pencil and watercolours.