I like to draw in the museums. All the great old dead white male artists used to do it. Quite a few of the dead white female artists got into the habit, as well. Today African-American artists or Asian-American artists or other ethnic/American groups of artists, roam the museums drawing. And when they die, successive generations will have any number of dead anybodies’ footsteps to follow in. That’s my paeon to multiculturalism: to give it time. No one should feel gawky by making drawings in museums. Picasso was the greatest thief of all.
Pst … just between us … all the ArtNews artists who spurn drawing, can’t draw. There’s a reason for everything. But … shh … don’t tell anybody. Okay?
I drew this figure in front of the National Gallery’s The Young Governess by Jean Simeon Chardin. (A click takes you to a detail, click from there on “detail images” to see the whole painting.) I guess I’ve made hundreds of drawings like this by now. Well, I really love to draw. And you learn a lot by copying the old guys (and gals).
[Top of the post: Drawing after Chardin’s “The Young Governess,” by Aletha Kuschan]