Hyde Park and V&A Museum

Pictures: 1) Me on rock in Hyde Park, 2) with the Serpentine, 3) in the gilded room in the V&A, 4) the Prince Albert Memorial, 5) picture I drew in art class




Thursday we met our art teacher in Hyde Park at the Serpentine Museum. They currently have an exhibition of Indian art (art from artists from the country of India). Most of the art dealt with the way India is handling the transition from a mostly rural, poor country to an industrialized, largely urban country. The globalization of India is hard on many people who are not sure where they belong and how to handle customs and a way of life that seem to be slipping away. Some of the art I found very interesting, and other exhibits I didn't really get. However, there was this one piece that looked a bit like a child's fort/castle made out of rusty oil drums and you could actually crawl inside it and even though the outside was really ugly, inside the roof was poked with an ice pick and the light shone through the metal like stars and reflected off internal mirrors. It reminded me of my bedroom at my old house in Charlotte with hundreds of glow in the dark stars on the ceiling. So that was pretty cool.

From there I just came back to the flat and watched Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters online, then I went to my drawing class at 7 pm. It was a woman model this time, probably in her early 50s, but had a pretty good body for her age. I think my 25 minute sketches turned out fairly well, so I'll post one.

Today Ashley and I went back to Hyde Park and walked through more of it since it was sunny. We took pictures in Kensington Gardens (part of Hyde Park) and just strolled along the Serpentine (which is a lake I guess) talking and enjoying the day. Again, it was cold, but pretty. From there we walked down to the Victoria and Albert Museum and explored a lot of that. I love the fact that most all of the museums here are free! There was this one room in the museum that was all gilded and looked like the ballroom from the sound of music - I was pretty much in heaven.




After that Ashley and I came back to the flat and I just made dinner and now I'm going to watch Dirty Dancing. I was so upset with the quality of acting in the stage performance I saw of it the other night that I was really wanting my DVD to watch, so my friend Tommy sent me one which is quite exciting!