Thurs 04.04.13

Today I visited the Pitt Rivers Museum to look at artefacts, make observational drawings and take photographs. A few weeks ago I found the trip to Exeter really useful and a good way of getting more ideas, inspiration and initial designs to work from and wanted to get something similar out of this day. I also find that if I am drawing on location then I will really focus because I am aware of the need to get all the information down on paper during the limited time that I have there. I have been feeling a little bit lost with my project and uneasy about the lack of practical work which I have so far so I also thought that getting some drawings done would make me feel more confident about it and like I have accomplished something.

Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

I choose this museum in particular because I wanted to build on the research which I have done into African art and North American artefacts and I wanted to find more subject matter similar to the items which I found in the World Cultures exhibit at the RAMM. 

I feel that overall the day went really well, the only problems I had were with time, and also it was quite different to sit and do careful drawings because there was an Easter holiday activity day going on and so the small museum was very loud and crowded. I focussed mainly on the first and second floors as the top floor was mainly armour and metalwork which I was not very interested in for the purposes of my project. I went around recording sketches, some longer and more detailed than others and then as the day drew on and I started to run out of time I took lots of photographs around the museum as well for future reference. 

The artefacts were really interesting and I think that from a design and decorative point of view they will be very useful to my project. I focussed mainly on figurative things, although I did record some patterns. I was particularly drawn to faces and masks, both animal and human. Some of the masks were very ornate and others were quite crude and simplistic. I also found another totem pole which I made drawings from, although it was less intricate and interlinked than the one which I saw in the RAMM. I was pleased with my drawing and managed to get quite a lot of information down considering the amount of time which I had, although I would have liked to have come away with more. I found lots of elements which were interesting from a decorative perspective and I could see them working together and developing into more comprehensive designs.