Sketch of the Week: The Rock

(Also posted in Illustration Friday - you have to "yield" to something this big!)

What the locals simply call "the rock" arrived at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) this weekend after a 105-mile journey from the quarry on a custom-built 295-foot transporter. It is a part of a giant outdoor art exhibit called Levitating Mass. It was specially open for public viewing for this weekend only before the construction continues behind the fences, so I stopped by one night to take a closer look.

So...how can I sketch something this big?? The transporter is so long that you cannot see from one end to the other, even though it is parked in an arc formation.

Here is the front truck - I drew the silhouettes of palm trees in the right corner to give it some sense of scale:

and the beam around the rock:

Even though it was getting late at night, a steady stream of people walked by and peeked through the fences to look at the rock. From what I overheard, most people are impressed by the transporter, which is so big that it makes the 340-ton rock look tiny. One woman came up to me and said, "you know, this truck is a work of art more than the rock." After looking at the engineering effort that went into the transporter, I'd have to say that I agree, though I'm sure I'll be equally impressed by the rock when this exhibit opens later in the year.