Tony's Tour: Oxford- Pitt Rivers Museum, The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Museum of History of Science

Today, we followed Tony to Oxford and visited several museums. There are Pitt Rivers Museum, The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Museum of History of Science, and Modern Art Oxford.

Our first destination was Pitt Rivers. To get there, we went through Natural History Museum. These two buildings are connected together. 

Pitts Rivers Museum, founded by Lt-General Pitt Rivers in 1884, was an ethnographical museum. The objects in the museum are specially displayed typologically, grouped by their form or purpose, instead of following their geographical or cultural region. This is quite unusual compared with other museum, which gives us a new perspective to look all these objects. Apart from beautiful or valuable objects, the museum also houses objects for daily use, revealing the life of people in the past.

Numerous objects are kept in glass and wooden cabinets. For some bigger pieces, they are hung on the wall or suspended in the sky, like boats and big pieces of fabric. Ground floor was divided into sections like: basketry, rope and string, magic, ritual, religion and belief, vessels, musical instruments, treatment of the Dead, and so on. Personally, I found sections about magic, ritual and death are too scary, while vessels and instruments are most interesting. I can never imagined except vessels made of glass, wood, ceramic and metal, there are so many other types of vessels. It is exciting to see that depending on the region people lived, they tried hard to exploit the materials they could get. For example, people from tropical islands may use coconut shell as container. And these vessels even have aesthetic value, which were beautifully made. 

water container made of coconut shell

made of ostrich egg

leave?

made of bamboo

I found this in the basketry section. It is full of delicate details and adorable form.

As an ancient Africa doll, this one with a mellow body and warm smile, looks so cute.

I found these fans and feather works in the following images in the second floor. Many of them are quite unusual that can be a nice reference in the future.

This one was made of leather, how curious.

And these astonishing feather hats.

The one below is a traditional technique of making hair decor. The crucial material was kingfisher's feather, which has gleamy vibrant blue. It is now illegal to do so, because the kingfishers are rare and precious today. Not a long time ago, I saw someone online find a way to mimic this effect by replacing the feather with blue silk ribbon.

These are some odd sun glasses. You have to admit that people invented some really odd things. Some of them even look like laser eyes in the movie.

After lunch, we went to the Museum of History of Science.

Most collections in the museum are astronomical instruments. Recently, due to several reasons, my theme becomes something about cosmology. Before I went to the museum, I happened to review some basic knowledge about cosmology. So these instruments are quite relevant. There are the model s for geocentric theory, heliocentric theory, sundials from various countries, and so on.

This one shows the map on the earth as well as the corresponding celestial map.  

This one shows that in Indian Methodology, our land is a sphere and supported by elephants.

As a background research, it is important to know what happened and how people thought in the past, in different regions. And it can be really helpful for me to see them in real after reading. In this way, I can understand the research I did better. And among all the information and knowledge, I need to find the one that can support my project.

On the way back home, I had a nice conversation with our new classmate Angelique. She is a Phd in Physics, and she said she will send me a reading list about cosmology, which is really helpful.

Morley College - Watercolour & Ceramic Course 4

It is delightful to find out that I had some progress in watercolour. I am more confident in using brush and paints, and according to our teacher, I gradually know what I am doing.

Apart from the class once a week, I also did some practice at home.

Here is our teacher showing us how to do a watery effect.

I love the fluffy, soft edges and the clean colour she painted. This is a simple demonstration, but I can feel her control and casualness. There is a huge distance between us, across time. Wish there is one day that I can paint like this. 

Here she showed how to use the colour from one side to give the shape of the other side, like sky and snow mountain.

Here are some colour charts of varied types of watercolour paints.

The following images are other students' work. Most of them are elder people. Even each course lasts for about 6 weeks, they have been here for many years, doing what they like and making friends.

They are not literally skilful, but I found their paintings are inspiring and beautiful. There is a sort of joyfulness and peace inside. I always found that I try to cover all of the paper that there is no breathing space in the end, becoming stiff. Even the way I use my brush is full of stiffness. I wonder why. Even I consciously want to change the way I paint, it seems not really helpful.

Because I keep painting icebergs and snow mountains, our teacher showed me this work. I think it is amazing, especially the way that mountain and grass in the front were painted. The brush stokes are so vivid, and the shape, size and direction of the stokes are just at the place they should be. My practice is far less than enough.

Here are some work I did.

Saunders Waterford 190g, cold pressed (Not)

Our teacher recommended these two paper to me, since I want to achieve the water wash feeling and have the watery edge. I feel more satisfied about the colour in these two work than the work before. Especially, I like the subtle colour in the sky, and the comparison between the strong orange and blue. I also tried to use some casual brush strokes to give some energy to the work. Which worked to some extend, but I think the brush strokes on the back of the mountain in the work below are a bit too strong. However, in a way, these stokes give a sense of how the mountain turn, from one side to another.

Saunders Waterford 300g, hot pressed ( needs to be wetted on both sides, otherwise hard to wash.

For the following two yellow,  I used a sponge to paint them instead of brush. And I deliberately did not put on my glasses, trying to get a overall effect.

I enjoyed using sponge, because there is more playfulness inside. Comparing these two, the one above has better volume, while the one below has better colour. The colour above is too strong.

I painted the one above later than the one below. I was suggested that for the side of the mountain, I can paint across the surface instead of following the line of the mountain,which gives it more volume.

This bowl was the one I made in the first class, now after firing, it looks like this. I quite like this rusty rough surface. People think it gives a feeling of antique.

The following images show our teacher's demonstration of throwing.

push forward and press to push it down. 

push it inwards to pull it up.

Open it.

pull it up and to the centre.

Then pull it up. Keep the inner finger higher than the finger outside. Use fingers push against the clay and form an 'S' on the clay body.