As I mentioned in a previous article Wrigley Tower became my “SOH of Chicago” (iconic building – like the Sydney Opera House – that I ended up sketching over and over)

So I thought I would share with you all the sketches I did of it in a single article. I wish that I had sketched it from a few more angles and done a few closeups as its details are exquisite. But ah! this is an essential characteristics of a SOH building, that a handful of sketches are never enough.

Wrigley Tower Sketch #1
My first sketch was from the twenty-something floor of the nearby Equitable building, drawing it in context with the gorgeous Chicago river.

Wrigley Tower Sketches #2 & #3
Two detail sketches from the same location. The really funny thing about these sketches was that even though I was so close to the building, and only focusing on the details of the tower, I was still struggling to fit the tower onto my page. This was the major theme of sketching in Chicago!

Wrigley Tower Sketch #4
The next day, I sketched it from the riverside (sketching alongside Lynne Chapman). I was still in the stage of adjusting to the scale of Chicago and was struggling to fit the right number of storeys into the overall volumes I had drawn. I was also chatting non-stop to Lynne.

Wrigley Tower Sketch #5, 6 & 7
I wasn’t totally happy with this sketch, so I did another three studies trying different things! Note: I am always looking for better ways to sketch things, and mixing it up!

Wrigley Tower Sketch #8
I wanted to attempt a neat and accurate version, but it didn’t work the way I had hoped due to a number of factors:

1. I wasn’t quite in the calm and comfortable mood I needed to be to do a slow careful sketch.
2. I started rushing because the shadow I was sitting in was rapidly shrinking
3. I thought I understood the structure and was a little over confident in my own abilities to draw accurately without doing all the steps I teach in my SketchingNow Buildings course. Ha!
4. I got bored halfway through mainly because I wasn’t in the right calm mood.

Wrigley Tower Sketch #9
After the symposium, I returned to the area with Suhita (who hadn’t done a riverside sketch) and did a similar view. Once again talking non-stop so I was a little distracted. Still this sketch happened fairly easily – I did it in my reflex-sketching mode.

Wrigley Tower Sketch #10
This sketch is of the view from my seat on the boat before the Architectural Boat Tour.

Wrigley Tower Sketch #11
And in the final sketch from the boat tour coming back to the wharf I managed one more sketch of Wrigley Tower.

For those of you who are doing my SketchingNow Buildings course:
I hope that you can see a number of different approaches used – feeling edges, abstracting shapes(mapping light and dark) and constructing volumes! And especially how I always establish the volumes and the structure first and then fade away the pattern of the windows. Due to the nature of this building, I didn’t really do a fully shaped based version of it.

Please let me know if you want me to explain any sketch in particular

Summary: I still want to sketch Wrigley Tower more as I didn’t feel I achieved the type of sketch I was searching for. But still, I’m happy with this collection and hope that one day I will be able to return to Chicago and have another go… or another 10 sketches!

Question for you:
Do you have your own ‘SOH’ – a building or place that you sketch over and over again. Do you like sketching icons or do you prefer to record more everyday scenes?