Cabinet of Curiosities

Hello fellow bloggers,

Since seeing this link on Rinda's blog - a brilliant and inspiring website - I have been inspired to join in my first ever on-line challenge. I love the thought of not knowing what each monthly challenge will be and what ideas I can generate to meet those challenges. It is an opportunity I don't want to miss. 

As you may well know from past blog posts, I have a great fascination with Natural History and when I saw that the sketchbook challenge was a 'Cabinet of Curiosities' how could I resist?

I used the same theme to inspire my work at University, the idea that an explorer travelled to the far reaching places of the world, brought back curios and assorted natural paraphernalia and placed it together as a collection. This is a brilliant concept and still inspires me. Cabinets were the precursor to museums; imagine what the world would be like without them!

I have a large collection of different natural objects placed around my home and I began to wonder... how would I display them in a cabinet?

Here is a list that I have come up with:
Fossils
Insects
Minerals
Shark teeth
Skulls
Dried plants and crystals
Shells and stones
Tree branches and feathers etc.

Great explorers also sprang to mind, like Charles Darwin and David Attenborough, and my favourite, and the first museum I ever visited as a boy, The Natural History Museum in London. (I will need a large Cabinet to fit all mine in!)

I was also reminded of a school project that I did with Year 8, two years ago. Here are a few images from the sketchbook I created to show them examples of a timeline.

The students produced a fossil timeline using collage, print and different painting techniques.

All of this has sparked off my excitement to create a 'Cabinet of Curiosities' and I hope to be able to document this over the next couple of weeks, before the end of October. I have always been intrigued by the story of evolution and the tree of life. Here are some of the pages I have done so far.

"Life will find a way" Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park

Looking forward to joining in with the Sketchbook Challenge at the end of this month and seeing everyone's creative Cabinets.  

The large canvases for Flora's class have had to take a back-seat this week due to illness. I lost my voice (imagine that for a teacher!) but I am now on the mend after a rare visit to the Doctors. I am hoping for a creative weekend ahead and will post them soon.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  

Andy