Drawing in the British Museum and birthday postcards

Our tutor is very keen on everyone getting over their nerves about drawing in public, so we all went to the British Museum today.  I'm still struggling with relative proportions as seen in these first two A4 pages from the Mexican gallery, supposedly of Huaxtec female deities .

I tried to enjoy the whole experience, including having a couple of Buddhist monks looking over my shoulder, and overhearing the following exchange: " Have you ever been to Mexico?"  No……….  " Do you want to go to Mexico?……………." ………..No.  If I was a decent painter I would be tempted to include these observations in my final works, as does Kurt Jackson.

After a coffee ( and a very good salted caramel and apple cookie),  I found a more straightforward subject, the sculpture of  "Mother Earth" by Mona Saudi.  After another painstaking attempt at clean lines and shading

I had a good talk with the tutor about my lack of patience and wanting to draw more quickly and spontaneously.  He was very understanding about  "finding my own style of drawing that fits with my personality and way of working" so suggested a more dynamic approach.  I'm happier with these.

4B pencil

Charcoal pencil

I haven't done many postcard swaps this year,but have kept up with the birthday swap.  Unfortunately the Yahoo group where the swap is posted seems to be losing its momentum, so I'm not sure ho much longer it will continue.  I think several epode have been put off by the difficulties with the Yahoo upgrades this year, particularly the difficulty of loading photographs. I wonder if there is also a reluctance to spend 62p  time on posting cards to up to 6 people at a time every month.  My birthday theme was feathers and fronds, and everyone has interpreted it differently.

The Narnia postcard is now edged and ready to send off