visiting the Natural History Museum
Yes, the strikes are over and it’s safe to venture out to this behemoth of a building in South Kensington, one of the prettier parts of London – more on that later.
My initial thoughts when organising my day out were around focussing mainly on birds at the NHM, and generally soaking up the atmosphere and possibly doing a bit of urban sketching too. on arrival it proved to be extremely busy and as such, not great for trying to draw. There’s nowhere to sit or even awkwardly perch apart from in the designated areas, and the streams of people made it a bit tricky to get into any sort of groove with drawing, although at least taxidermy doesn’t move so I could stop and start without losing my subject.
I started to feel a bit sad about the extinct birds, and the unwitting sense of abundance that clearly encouraged our forebears to feel justified in collecting this multitude of species for our recreation and interest. I wholeheartedly appreciate the value I took myself off to have a coffee and a regroup, and work out where to go next. There is a lovely display on the upper landing of flying birds, so I went to see if I could find an albatross, and sure enough there were a couple, but I drew the one which looked most like Wisdom. There are petrels shearwaters and other seabirds, and these look more dynamic than their counterparts in the main avian display downstairs. It was also less crowded.
Here are my drawings for the day:
