Natural History museum

I must remember to check when half term falls and not plan to go to the Natural History Museum! But managed to see the fish exhibits and the amazing shapes and features. The resist fish I did with a madder dye were successful so I want to extend my reserve of drawings and images and combine fish into the water designs.

The problem at the Museumwas that I didn't spend a lot of time drawing from the displays but the time I did spend enabled me to study the features of the faces and the fin structure. The lines of the bones and scales can relate well to wax resist and I can make tools to give the impression of scales.

I loved the colours of some of the specimens and the exaggerated features. Think they could be a design source in their own right not only combined with my ripple and reflection ideas!

But I have started gathering nettles for my research into the range of colours/tones that can be extracted from nettles.
The Botanist in the Research Centre in the Nat. Hist Museum was really helpful and answered my questions regarding the taxonomy and homogeneity of nettles. He said he would be interested in the outcomes of my research!!