Friday NIght Baroque with dissolving lines

As I am in such an inkless mood, I thought I would try a favourite Baroque facade to draw... I can't even think of the name of it but it is in Rome, near the Pantheon. This does look quite different from my usual Friday Night Baroque such as here and yet in essence there is only two fundamental differences.
1. instead of ink outline I used a raw umber watercolour pencil. I think my lines might be somewhat looser but not radically dfiferent
2. I am working with my watercolour paint a LOT wetter  - obviously the result of 1. above is that the lines are dissolving and the wetter paint is doing that even more.
I would like to try again with a little more control....

Finishing off my week with architecture sketching late at night!

Instead of my goal of posting once a week... I seem to be only averaging once a month. I will try to step it up again.
I haven’t really had any time lately to be out on the streets sketching buildings and it has been raining a lot, but I still seem to keep up my usual late Friday evening architecture sketching.
This was a sketch I did two weeks ago.... Instead of my often late night Baroque sketching... it was Indian Architecture sketching while watching an impressive performance by the Indian cricket team....
Although I MUCH prefer to sketch on location, sketching from photos is such a good way to practice...and it seems that I find Baroque sketching relaxing late at night.
Here are some other ones (some mid -week!)




If you missed it - I have explained why I like sketching baroque so much here

I am ALWAYS sketching architecture

Whether it is out on location....

St Matthews Manly from my cousins wedding on Saturday


An hour at Milsons Point ...having fun sketching the Luna Park gates and then a very quick opera house sketch witn my new 3.8mm pilot parallel calligraphy pen (I never get sick of sketching this buidling!)

..... Or just some relaxation sketching after dinner.Trying different techniques and pen/colours....









.... Or a doodle at work

(from my Italian desktop calendar) while waiting for something to print
This is an example of my standard work sketching style - my bread and butter sketching that I have been doing for 20 years done with an Artline 0.4 black felt pen. Before I discovered watercolour I was totally addicted to cross hatching- it is the way that I think when designing – and it wasn’t until I started drawing my food that I started to restrain myself...now I hardly ever use it.


It doesn’t matter what you sketch as long as you keep sketching. Whilst I much prefer being outside sketching, I find it very useful to be constantly sketching and experimenting from photos in training for on location sketching.

Sketching is really the best way to understand architecture

I will try to post more contemporary architectural sketches on the blog (promise!) but as I was recently looking through my travel sketchbooks from last year's trip I just feel compelled to share with you all (again) some sketching that I did where I was totally in the groove.. eye saw, hand drew and the brain understood how the building was put together as the other two were doing their thing together...
(these sketches are also found on the UK sketches page)



The first two are at Seaton Delavel by Sir John Vanbrugh (yeah- more Baroque! This time English baroque... love his amazing use of volumes and rather outlandish heavy detailing!) When I sketched these I wasn't really caring about perspective but just recording in as quick and as loose a manner as possible what I was looking at




These three are details from Blenheim Palace (Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor)
One of the amazing things about posting your sketches online via iphone on the day...is there just might be someone that sees it and reads your silly notes. Someone knew exactly what John Summerson quote I was wanting and typed it up for me so that evening I could read it! Which was
There is a double beat, then [the Doric Order] wheels round. Another double beat: it turns, enters the towers – it disappears. Then out it marches from the near side of each tower, marches forward till it is returned as a formal entry with steps inside and a flourish of arms above. (summerson, The classical Language of Architecture, 1991, pag. 71)

How cool is that.