A couple of months ago I have some very good friends in from out of town and we decided to take a trip the the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I had been contemplating purchasing a membership there for a while since it would give me a place to do life drawing, and on this particular excursion I broke down and bought one. And I've loved it...and it's already paid for itself. I've been visiting almost every week since I bought it, and since I can go for free anytime I want it doesn't matter if I go in for just an hour and don't hit every exhibit since I can return whenever I want. This means that I can visit on the slower afternoons when all the school groups have left (when your day job involves working with kids you end up wanting to avoid all contact with children on your days off). I've really enjoyed going back to drawing from life, especially since I'm doing it for me and don't have to worry about art school professors grading what I've done. These are my favorites from the past few weeks.
These have all been drawn from reference in the museum's Wildlife Halls. At some point I'd like to draw some of the fossils in their dinosaur exhibit (as well as their temporary exhibit featuring a model of Sue the T-rex), but during my visits I haven't been able to well up the patience it takes to sit there and draw a full dinosaur skeleton. I have a little less than a year until my membership is up (and a new sketchbook to fill), so I'm sure I'll get to it sometime.
