Linelessness - painting buildings shapes not edges

One of the things that I love about keeping a sketchbook and sketching regularly is that you never not what direction your art might take. The regular habit puts you in the space that can lead to the unexpected. Last week, I started keeping a food diary and decided to paint with no lines…

This week this state of linelessness has taken over…and interestingly extended to my architecture sketching.

What is really  fun about this is that it is so different from my normal approach of clearly defining edges according to the architectural form of a building. This week I have just been playing with shapes. In the delightful tension between painter vs architect, I think the painter is winning at the moment!

My first sketch was from a photo (I am heading to Tasmania for some workshops next month) and I was drawing with paint here and trying not to describe every element the same way. Really trying to make the most of the power of the white on the page as well.

The next sketch was a local Federation house (in Mosman) and I was really concentrating on drawing shapes or the negative shapes to describe form. Working Very wet as well.



My third sketch is a Tasmanian building from a photo again… and this time I started with the openings and worked my way around from there. The very last thing that I did was to add those paint lines that describe the architectural details - the columns and the moulding details.



And finally, yesterday, I did two versions of a local house. (ok...the second version has some watercolour pencils lines in it...so I have not totally abandoned my lines...no indeed intend to)
 

I took a photo after my first step - once again drawing shapes first and not the important edges.




Who knows what I will be doing next week….