I used to visit Washington, DC to visit friends and made many drawings there. Now that I live so close to the Capital City, you'd think that I would visit there and sketch all the time but as of now I hardly ever venture there. The reason is that I don't want to be stuck in crowds on the Metro nor do I want to drive in and struggle to find any parking space. The whole area is much more difficult to move about in than it was 25 years ago early in my stay here. Metro stations are inaccessible for parking unless you already have a pre-paid ticket. So I draw suburban scenes, or country wineries. But back in the 1980s I was able to draw the neoclassical heroic architecture of Washington including one set done in the Library of Congress. This hallway ends in a majestic mosaic portrait of the Goddess Minerva (or Athena), the goddess of war and sometimes peace. The art was done by American 19th century symbolist Elihu Vedder, who has been a huge but un-mentioned influence on current American fantasy art. You can see this hallway and the Athena art in a well-produced Library of Congress series of websites.
Readers: Sometime a month or so ago I posted my 2500th Art Byproduct. I have been publishing pictures from my sketchbooks and archives for almost 8 years. Sooner or later I'm gonna run out of old pictures to post. I still draw new ones of course but I don't always do one every day. What do I do with the blog? If I go to an every-other-day posting schedule I may slack off and stop posting altogether. I know there's only 10 of you readers out there but you seem to enjoy my posting and continuity. Comments are welcome.
Minerva hall drawing is tech pen on sketchbook page, 7 1/2" x 8", June 19, 1985.
1 comment:
Once you've published your remaining archives, just continuing posting with new drawings as you complete them. It doesn't matter if you miss a day. :)
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