Architectural Detail

Living near the Historic Downtown of Woodland has definite advantages. Often times I try to make it downtown during the day and have a cup of coffee and get a little sketching in. Sunday was one of those days when I had a little time to visit some of my favorite places.

Started at a local coffee house called Common Grounds which has good coffee and a decent layout. I worked on a warm-up sketch which I hoped would never see the light of day, but in the interest of showing all the struggles an artist goes through I'll post a photo here.

Here is my photo, a pretty simple 1 point perspective

First layer of paint, I'm starting to dread this sketch.

All is well going into my sketch. Although it looks like I've made everything a little too large...

It didn't really turn out how I want, but that is why it is called a warm-up right?

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My next target was another building that I have sketched a few times. Something keeps drawing me back to it. I have been drawn to the entry of the Porter Building, and specifically the large scroll and bountiful harvest detail above the main door to the stairs.

My first step in sketching is trying to find the right proportions of the overall figure and make sure everything is going to fit on the paper. Unfortunately, most of the time I get stuck in the details and just have to 'hope' it all turns out ok.

I've created a few sketches of this detail from different perspectives, Something keeps drawing me back in.

I've spent about 25 minutes on the sketch to this point. Some of the perspective is off, but I don't really mind that. I am just happy I got it all on the page this time!

The sketch is complete. Now for the fun part, PAINT!

Tone the image, Start light and try to find the depth early

Here is some additional tone for depth, and starting the dark paint up toward the top of the details.

Full Detail paint, all darks added. Time to leave and head home. Total time: 2.25 hours?

Here is a slideshow to show you the progress of the image. Overall I am happy with the results, although I really struggled with it until about the 2 hr mark. Hopefully that is something I can get used to.