Art Museums

Looky Loo

Art Museums

Talking and looking at pictures of art is always helpful when learning about art, but I feel that to really get a new view and a full grasp of art you need to see it in person. You don't need to go to some fancy pants art museum either, though if possible seeing really famous artwork is always a treat. I've been to a few art museums and have enjoyed them all. Yes you need some patience to go around a building looking at walls but if you find the beauty that is there beyond the 'oh that's pretty' then you might be amazed. 

I've been to a lot of little museums that just show local art (which is good so don't be put off) so I can't name them all. I've also been to a few major and not so major museums such as the Denver Art Museum in Denver, CO, McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, TX, Wichita Art Museum in Wichita, KS. All of them I recommend to go to. The McNay was probably the most memorable for me. I went there in the summer of 2010 with my parents. The McNay is a private collection of Marion Koogler McNay, a female artist who starting collecting artwork in 1927. This collection grew to more than 700 pieces which she left after her death in 1950 to become the first art museum in Texas. Now the museum has over 20,000 pieces of artwork. Many pieces are very well know, including the original Water Lilies by Monet. This piece I never really liked or even understood why it was considered beautiful until I saw it in person. The painting was simply amazing to me. Now I want every chance to go an art museum.

Here are the locations of the three art museums.


McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX

Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO


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Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS


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Shading 1: Hatching and Cross Hatching

Shading 1:

Hatching and Cross hatching

Shading is a way to add depth to a drawing. Showing the shadows and lighting gives 3-dimensional elements to the 2-dimensional paper. There are many types of shading  and one of the basic ones is hatching. Hatching can also be used as just a way that the drawing is made up. For example in the slideshow below there's Van Gogh's Starry Night.

Basic Terms

Hatching is just using lines at different lightness/darkness and different spaced intervals to show the transition from light to dark on an object.

Cross Hatching is using these same lines as in hatching but using criss-crossing  them.

Contour lines are the lines that follow along the shape of the object, this is another step to adding depth and with hatching contour lines are used to apply the shading to fit the object.

Here I'll show various hatching and cross hatching examples.