Escape to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park!

Today I am working at the Imperial war Museum in Manchester, running illustration workshops to tie in with their current exhibition Once Upon a Wartime. But, since today is Saturday, when I should by rights be out playing with my chums, I took yesterday off instead and John and I went out for the day.

 

It was once again gloriously sunny, so we drove up to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to see the new Miro exhibition. Fantastic! The indoor gallery has a mix of old and new work: some of the big, colourful prints, but lots of sculpture, big and small. My favourites were the huge, black bronzes. Three lovely ones filled one gallery, the rest were on the lawns outside. They were so dramatic and often quite humorous. 

I sat and attempted to paint a couple. I did get quite grumpy though, as the sun might have been warm, but the wind was fierce and really cold. It kept trying to whip my book away, which meant it was effectively 'jogging' me and making me splat paint in all the wrong places.

I decided to find somewhere more sheltered and walked a bit further down the hill, towards the lake. It was still pretty windy, but not quite so bad. I kept adding layers though, until I ended up swaddled in a polo-neck sweater and a padded coat and had to meet John in the cafe afterwards to warm my hands and belly with a coffee.

There was just time for one more sketch and I do love these massive rabbit-woman sculptures, almost woven from galvanised wire (I forgot to make a note of the artist - anyone know?). More trouble with flying-sketchbooks though and I was getting seriously cold. Even by the half-done stage, John was jumping up and down beside me saying, 'you nearly done yet?' every 30 seconds!