Sketching at the museum

Every first Saturday of the month (as we happily found out), the admission to the Museum zu Allerheiligen in SH is free. Perfect for a monthly sketchout in these icy cold temperatures!

At the Manora restaurant, waiting for the museum to open.

The ideal female form according to people from Oaxaca, Mexico, 1st cent. BC - 2nd cent. AD. 

Urn from Colombia, 10-15th cent. BC. 

We then proceeded to the next kebab & falafel take out for something warm.

Bones

There is a taxidermy collection in my town, and I went to see it for the first time last Sunday. It was very fascinating but some of the items rather belonged in a cabinet of curiosities.

Made me feel too queasy to complete a proper sketch (Scroll all the way down to see it).
I left again after half an hour of being stared in the neck by human skeletons.

However, I can recommend it for sketch outings as the admission is free. One can sit quite undisturbed and sketch. Just remember to bring your own small folding stool.

Opening hours are 11 am to 5 pm on Sundays only.

Reichenbach Fall

Yesterday was devoted to all things Sherlock and the Reichenbach Fall.

I hoped to be joined by Stjepan and Birgit, but Birgit could not make it due to other travel commitments. Bon voyage Birgit!

It was worth the one way 3 hour train ride. I got to be all nerdy and fangirly about Sherlock and even got my very own deerstalker hat!

I could not resist!

A few more photos:

Just before the Reichenbach Fall (which you can see in the background), there is a private clinic.
For all of those who could not deal with the end of season 2 of the BBC Sherlock series?
In any case, I thought it was rather fitting.

The actual Reichenbach

Click to enlarge this photo and see where Sherlock and Moriarty "officially" fell (marked by a white star).
If you ask me, they would have found Moriarty's body quite quickly.
No way he would have just disappeared forever and without a trace. 

A rainbow!

Holmes final note.

I cannot wait for season 3 of the BBC Sherlock series!

Qin - The eternal emperor and his terracotta warriors

I went to the Historical Museum of Bern today to see the Qin exhibition.
Somehow, it felt like a bigger (and much more foreign) version of the Celtic Glauberg exhibition I went to in May.

The exhibition lasts until November 17th of this year. If you want to go and see it, buy the tickets online and show it at the SBB counter when buying your train ticket. You will get 10% off.

Also, download the official audio guide app from either iTunes or the Android app store.
The app runs in German, English, French and Italian.
You may save only 1 CHF, but if you go there to sketch, you will be thankful you only need to put in your earplugs and not have one hand occupied with the museum's audio guide device.

With each audio segment a related picture of one of the exhibits is shown on the screen. I can revisit what I have seen and heard today, which I think is really nice.

✎

When I got on the train in Zurich, an elderly couple with visitors from Sweden sat on the remaining free seats around me. There was one very blonde little girl with them as well.
I was already sketching at that point, just finishing up a few brush strokes before moving on to a light pencil sketch of the items on the little table in front of me.
I am not good at guessing the age of little kids, I only know that girl was past the three word sentence stage (yes, this is the linguist talking here) and she wanted something from the lady opposite her.
She was at first misunderstood, in the end it turned out she wanted to swap seats with that lady so she could watch me sketch.
After a couple minutes that girl got out her own sketchpad and coloured pencils.
I loved it.
The two of us sitting there sketching away, no words needed!

 Qin Dynasty (Wikipedia)

At the Qin exhibition there were a lot of items with very intricate and detailed patterns carved on them, which I quite enjoyed drawing.

I did give the armor made out of small stone plates a try, but soon gave up.

This armor was made to be a burial object, not an actual defense against swords or arrows. It weights over 18 kilos and would have broken apart quickly if someone did actually wanted to have a stab at it.

One of the museum employees walked over and asked if I was comfortable and had all I need. He was looking at my sketches and seemed happy. I saw him again later on and we nodded at each other, smiling. I'd like to think that my sketching made at least two people happy today.

After two hours of wandering around I felt quite hungry and thirsty, and got something Asian to eat at the museum restaurant. They had these nice little cups as decoration on the tables:

My museum ticket was also valid for the other permanent exhibitions. I did go to have a peek, but decided I could not take in any other cultures for today and left. I would love to come back though and sketch my way through the American Indian and Ancient Egypt sections.

I also tried to do a couple of thumbnail sketches from the train window as a memory exercise on the way back. Not satisfied with it though.

And then, that was it! I filled my A5 Moleskine Watercolor sketchbook, and it took me much longer than I want to admit.

Lord of Glauberg

From Wikipedia:

The Glauberg is a Celtic oppidum in Hesse, Germany, consisting of a fortified settlement and several burial mounds, "a princely seat of the late Hallstatt and early La Tène periods."Archaeological discoveries in the 1990s place the site among the most important early Celtic centres in Europe. It provides unprecedented evidence on Celtic burial, sculpture and monumental architecture.

Much international attention was attracted especially by the discovery of an extremely rare find, a life-sized sandstone statue or stele, dating from the 5th century BC, which was found just outside the larger tumulus. The stele, fully preserved except for its feet, depicts an armed male warrior. It is made from a type of sandstone available within a few kilometres of Glauberg. Much detail is clearly visible: his trousers, composite armour tunic, wooden shield and a typical La Tène sword hanging from his right side. The moustachioed man wears a torc with three pendants, remarkably similar to the one from the chamber in mound 1, several rings on both arms and one on the right hand. On his head, he wears a hood-like headdress crowned by two protrusions, resembling the shape of a mistletoe leaf. Such headdresses are also known from a handful of contemporary sculptures. As mistletoe is believed to have held a magical or religious significance to the Celts, it could indicate that the warrior depicted also played the role of a priest.

During an exploratory overflight in 1988, local antiquarians recognised the traces of a large tumulus in a field 300 m south of the oppidum. Between 1994 and 1997, the State Archaeological Service of Hesse excavated it. The mound originally had a diameter of nearly 50 m and a height of 6 m. It was surrounded by a circular ditch 10 m wide. At the time, it must have been a visually extremely striking monument.

Museum "Keltenwelt am Glauberg" (German)