On Saturday I went into the city (downtown) for a bit of sketching – I shared the full day of sketching here but I want to share a little more about my architecture sketching in this post.

I felt the urge to do some architecture sketching and that is what I ended up doing! This was how I started…. A very complicated building in Martin Place.

After a good cup of tea and some yummy scones I decided to sketch this little gem on George St in the Rocks. I have sketched it before but never had the sun on it like this. It is only a small building but delightfully complicated!

I tried to draw the line work as loose as I possibly could – without any regard (well, without much regard) to accuracy. As I have sketched this building before I already have a relationship with it so didn’t really need to study it much before I started scribbling. I was rather pleased with how it turned out. (Sorry for the low res image)

I then splashed on colour. I am trying to get lively washes – particularly in the shadow areas- trying to capture the warm glow that occurs in the shaded areas of the Sydney sandstone. Although I am a little happy with the effect in the archway- overall I wasn’t that keen with the end result… Maybe I added too much watercolour and the excitement of the linework is lost.

Anyway… The process got me thinking and I am going to experiment a bit more….. Stay tuned!