Visit to The Science & Industry Museum (Manchester) for Primary Research.

Upon deciding my final idea for my proposal would be based around circular shapes and was concentrating on drawing the sky, eyes and leaves I found myself drawing quite a lot from books and images on the internet as I didn't have access to real moons and suns in the flesh. For this reason I decided to take a trip to Manchester's Science and Industry Museum as I knew that they had a railway display where there is lots of machinery and coggs in the shape of circles. I wanted something more to draw that could be put into patterns and mixed with my other designs and just really to see how the circular machinery worked together spinning and connecting and moving together. I found myself really interested with the machines and I was fascinated at how much the creators of the railway machines made without computers and how complex the engines were. Furthermore the sheer size of some of the machines used to generate the trains astounded me and inspired me to want to work on a bigger scale. I found lots of clocks on the engines which I was pleased at because I have been using the idea of time in my work and I managed to get some photos of them to draw from. I have done some sketches from the museum which I feel has helped me a lot with my primary research.

Below are some images I took around The Science and Industry Museum.

From seeing the railway machines at The Science and Industry Museum I found myself thinking back to some of my previous research in the holidays when I looked at the artist Leonardo Da Vinci and his sketches of machines and anatomy. He mixed the two together in his drawings (like ****) and studied both subjects in great detail drawing from life and to make sure each drawing was so accurate and life like. I really admire his commitment to his love for art, the body and machinery and would love to have the time to study a subject in great detail like him to make my drawings really accurate too. It has inspired me to look closely at what I am drawing and visiting the museum brought circles to life for me and made me realize how important it is to see things in the flesh as real things instead of drawing from books and the Internet.

Although I didn’t look at the space exhibition that was in another part of The Science and Industry Museum I did come across some amazing post cards in the souvenir shop which I bought to draw from and found a great help for my drawings of the sky. I plan to go back at some point and explore the rest of the museum as there is so much to see and do and I feel it’s a place that artists can get a lot of inspiration and ideas from and there is lots to draw from also. 

Below are some of my images of the post cards I found.