Our local SCBWI chapter hosted an illustrator's visit to the Portland Art Museum last night. Armed with nametags and sketchbooks (and pencils only) we climbed the stairs to spend some time with the collection of Greek and Roman statues and ceramics generously on loan from the British Museum.
There was an adult fine art class sharing the space with us. They had folding stools and were parked in front of the famous discus man, focusing solely on negative space. It felt freeing -- if not slightly irreverent -- to be flitting around from piece to piece, taking in only the lines that interested me most.
We were only there for two hours and everyone felt they could have stayed much longer. I'm scheming to spend an entire day there in the near future. It's just so incredible to see in person things you've only seen in books.
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