For this exercise I was asked to look for statues outside in streets, parks, cemeteries, town squares etc. 

Last summer I was on holiday in Berlin and visited the Staatliche museem zu Berlin. (The Old National Gallery.) I had read up on this exercise in advance so decided as I was there I would complete this exercise there and then. (It is a good job I did as we are currently in lockdown with the coronavirus pandemic so this would be a very difficult exercise to complete at this moment in time.) 

Below are some photographs I took of some of the statues in the museums grounds. I tried to photograph the statues from different angles and I experimented with looking up at statues and looking down on to statues. 

My first drawing is of a statue of a young strong naked woman holding a bow and arrow standing on a box.   I liked this statue as it portrays a strong woman. Often in popular culture priority is placed on women being perceived as beautiful over powerful, whereas to me this statue shows strength and power. 

On the box were the words, F. Lepcke Bogenspannerin I presume this could be the name of the artist and name of the work. 

I drew the the woman from a slight angle as I felt this was the most interesting view. 

I worked with a hb and a 2b pencil, I drew a4 size and I worked on cartridge paper. 

I completed this drawing fairly quickly as I was accompanied by my two young children. I enjoyed drawing the figure but assumed as it was still it should be easier than drawing an actual person, but I still struggled with some accuracy. Perhaps if I spent longer on my drawing reworking and reworking it could have been more accurate? 

I struggled in particularly with the feet and hands. Below is my drawing.

The next statue I drew was inside the entrance of the gallery, I didn’t note the name or artist of this piece of work. This statue was again of a woman draped in a loose fitting pants dress or piece of fabric. The woman is crouching down playing a banjo type of instrument. The sculpture is completely white and appears to be made out of marble. 

I sat on a step level to the sculpture park whilst I drew. Again like my previous drawing I felt I was unsuccessful in drawing the statues hands and feet. This time however I had longer to complete my drawing as my husband entertained my children so I strived for more accuracy. At the time I was pleased with my drawing however upon looking at it from a photograph it appears that I drew the statues neck too big. Below is my drawing,

For my last drawing I worked from a photograph (my very young children were fed up with watching me draw at this stage.) The statue I chose was at the entrance of the museum but again I didn’t take down its name or the name of the artist. The statue was high so in order to get a good photograph of it I had to step away from it and point my phone to look up towards it. This meant it appeared bigger at the bottom and appeared to get smaller the higher up it went. The statue was of what I would guess to be a father with his two young sons. I was immediately interested in this statue as I too had two young’s sons of similar age (I now have three.) 

This was a more successful drawing for me, I assume it was because I was working from a 2d photograph of the sculpture rather than the 3d sculpture itself? I did still however struggle with all of the hands and feet. Below is my drawing, 

The main thing I learnt about this exercise is that drawing hands and feet is very difficult for me and this is clearly an area I need to work on, especially for the next project which is about drawing the human figure.