Vigeland park is one of the largest outdoor sculpture parks in the world. All of the sculptures are by Norway’s Gustav Vigeland.

This park is not for the prudish as it’s pure nudity in stone. There are over 200 of Vigeland’s sculptures and it can be an overwhelming place to visit for two reasons: first the sheer size of the collection, the unclothed human form in all sorts of poses and positions and secondly, Vigeland Park is one of Oslo’s top tourist sites. Tour buses disgorge camera-snapping hordes into the park and it’s hard to spend quality time with the art as you can be preoccupied with dodging selfie takers while trying not no wander into someone shot, well maybe I did a few times with purpose!

The plus side of sketching is that you don’t have to wait for the groups to get out of the way to do a sketch. Sometimes I even include them, for scale of course, in my sketch.

Vigeland Park is really a sketcher’s paradise. So many unmoving subjects everywhere you point your sketchbook.

I did three sketches in my two visits. Your constant companion is the park is the black-headed gull (more brown-headed). So I felt I had to include one in a sketch. To these gulls, this elevated art is simply a nice perch and the level of white-wash on the sculptures also turns the gulls into art critics.

At the highest point is the Monolith. This tower humans was carved out of a single piece of granite and two 20 years to finish.

While sketching the Monolith, I kept it loose, knowing that I was not going to draw every single human figure in the column. I just want to make a suggestion to the viewer without filling in every detail. In the end I am happy with the approach.

One of the most popular sculptures in the park, the number one sculptures most visitors want a selfie with is the Angry Boy. I sketch a version of the sculpture at the Vigeland Museum, near the park. This Angry Boy is not have a line in front of it so I was able to get a sketch in.