RG Peredo after Matisse

At least once every two weeks I like to go to a museum here in NY. I frequent the Metropolitan museum of art because of the Greek and Roman sculpture garden as well as the European sculpture section. This last week I went to the Museum of modern art armed with my sketchbook and a pen. I walked around and I also got to see the new Henri Matisse show which was pretty incredible. There was a lot of artwork, a lot of etchings, paintings, sculptures etc. I think my favorite pieces were the simple etchings, which were studies and quick portraits, Matisse's self portrait etching was my favorite of the bunch.

After I saw the whole exhibition I walked around the museum and ended up on the 4th floor in the european hall, I found myself again in front of some of Matisse's work (I drew this painting, the tag next to it said "Odalisque with a tambourine" but I actually looked on the web for it and another Matisse painting shows up.) It took me about 15-20 minutes to do this drawing, and in that time I met a very nice family on vacation in NY from France. They walked up to me and started watching me draw and then slowly the children started asking me questions. I eventually started making conversation with the parents.

I think that's one of the cool things about drawing in public, you get to meet people who are curious and always interested in art. At the same time some people don't necessarily like the fact that you're there for a while drawing. I had a woman come up to me and ask me why I was drawing there, that I "should take a picture and draw at home." I always try to step back and leave room for others to see the works of art, but some people just like to interject their opinions. All in all the day was nice and I did a lot of drawings, but this was my favorite.

-R