More London adventures

Scans of postcards from the John Soane Museum

Before my trip to the Beautiful Highgate cemetery, my very dear friend treated me to a few gems that neither of us had tried out before.

We headed to Lincoln’s Inn fields, London WC2 a very impressive square surrounded by large important looking London buildings. Both of our intended visits were on this square, our first was Sir John Soane’s house. He was an important architect in the 17 & 1800s he designed the bank of England, he also designed his house himself and left it to the nation as the John Soane Museum it contains many models and drawings of his works as well as  a huge selection curiosities and collections.

In nearly every room there are ornate skylights flooding the building with light, every nook and cranny is filled with objects. Small cramped over filled spaces open into huge rooms filled with displays and structures to house displays.

You could visit it many times and still not see everything in there.

The paintings room houses some great paintings and a wonderful surprise! That I will not reveal so if you ever get the chance to visit you too can be as amazed as us!!! There is a great virtual tour thing here that gives you just a tiny glimpse of the wonders inside. Its somewhere I will be visiting again and again now I know its there. 

  We then moved to the other side of the square and visited the Hunterian museum or as we now call it “the picked paradise” it’s the collection of John Hunter 1728 -1793 it has all kinds of specimens in jars and cases animal. Insects and humans! Just fascinating! the display itself was so impressive, heres a link to a lovely video made by a school kid about the museum.

scan of a postcard from the Hunterian museum   

Some of the stuff was quite hard to view (half a child’s face in a jar!!) but its endlessly fascinating not only from a science point of view but as an artist, the way some of the things are held in the jars, the colors and shapes, I could have stayed all day, one day soon I will have to return with a sketch book. Here’s another link to a virtual tour of the space.

I’ve come back inspired and over whelmed with images in my mind. I think my first need is to finish my current obsession with the rust dyed look! I still love it but I feel the need for a new palette of colors coming soon. Im going to finish off with a few more owls the a bit of work on foxes! After my little encounter in the graveyard, lets see where that takes me.

The palette of colors I like to try and find is the grey’s and greens of the stone and undergrowth from the graveyard, I need to find out how to achieve a grey with natural dyes, may need to call upon some of my lovely blogging friends for advice.

Enough for now, haven’t written this much for ages, it must be spring!

Xx jenny