Yesterday I went down to the Seattle Asian Art Museum for a little sketching with a friend. It's always nice to draw with a friend, both because you can see how another person approaches similar problems and also because it reduces my tendency to mutter to myself while I draw, which means I get fewer suspicious stares from museum security guards who probably all think I'm about to snap and start drawing mustaches on the thousand year-old sculptures (in fairness, there were a few that really would look better that way). Anyway, the top one is a detail in ink of a piece titled "Buddha and Two Bodhisattvas" (sorry, I didn't have the time or energy to draw the bodhisattvas, so the Buddha is all you get) from Pakistan in the 2nd-3rd century. The bottom drawing was done with charcoal pencil from a near life-size Chinese sculpture labeled as "Monk at the Moment of Enlightenment" from the 14th century.
There is a tragic end note to this expedition. My oatmeal sketch book from Utrecht finally gave up the ghost midway through the day with about eight pages left blank. The paper is fine, but a year or so bouncing around in my Dickies bag has left the spiral binding in a state where the book is now impossible to open or close without damaging the pages. I'm really fond of these sketchbooks and I went ahead and ordered another one from Utrecht, this time hardbound to avoid a repeat of the Tragic Death of the Spiral Binding. I should note that I am no way employed by Utrecht Art, but if they wanted to send me a few bucks for the endorsement I wouldn't complain.
