The Alfred Denny Museum

Last month, Sheffield University began allowing the public limited access to a secret little teaching museum, which was created in 1905 for the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences.

It is just one room, but full of wonderfully traditional, wooden-framed display cases and slender, wooden drawers, all of which are crammed with skeletons, taxidermy and odd things floating in jars. Sketching heaven. Unfortunately, we were only allowed 1 hour, and that included the very interesting 20 minute talk by a 3rd year student, about the acquisition of some of the stranger creatures. 

When she was done, I whizzed round with my sketchbook (and my brand new Sailor pen – which I LOVE), and quickly captured specimens as they caught my eye. 

The great news though, is the curator loves the sound of SketchCrawling and it looks like we might get back in for a longer session, just for sketchers. Can’t wait!!

The sketch below is only about a 3rd of the massive python skeleton mounted on the wall in the university foyer – I was drawing it while we were waiting to be allowed in.

The other nice thing, was that I got 2 new recruits to SketchCrawl North while I was drawing. 

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