Drawing at a Museum

EDM Challenge #38[2]  Draw at a museum. Today's challenge did not go as expected, which was not a bad thing!  We went to the Roy Lichtenstein exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago -- it's closing on Monday and I love his stuff and wanted to get in to see it.  It was an amazing exhibit.  Very well curated, as always, and I learned a lot and got to see some of his paintings up close.  I went through the whole exhibit and then went back to the one I had chosen to draw.  It had a "do not photograph" sign on it, but I thought that was to do with the camera, not with copying it.  There was a bench right in front of it, too.  Anyway, I got my stuff out and the guard came over and told me that I wasn't allowed to sketch that painting.  Did she really think I was that good?  And it's not as though there aren't photographs of it in the world.  Here's the link to the wikipedia file: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Little_Big_Painting.jpg

Well, I'm a shy person and I hate being yelled at by guards, even gently, so I apologized and basically ran away from the exhibit.  Then I went into the modern wing and sat down to draw a sculpture I like.  I had just gotten my book and pencils out when I was approached by someone.  At first I thought, "what is this, a moratorium on sketching at the Art Institute today?"  But no, it was a student at the Art Institute whose project was to draw his own portrait, and then be drawn by a few different people.  I guess with a blank sketchpad in front of me, I looked like an artist!  I said sure, and did a little 10-minute line drawing for him.  My hands were shaking!  It was so cool to be asked, though, and to be a part of this kid's project.  It was such a unique experience.  This drawing in public thing has really opened my eyes.  There's a plein-air painting group in Chicago -- maybe I'll look into joining them!

So I didn't get to keep the drawing, of course, but I asked if I could take a photo of it.  I'm incredibly pleased with the fact that in ten minutes, with shaking hands, I managed to do a drawing that kind of actually looks like the kid!  I think drawing every day for 38 days has started to sharpen my eye.  I need to do a few more portraits and see how they feel.