My project for course: Expressive Architectural Sketching with Colored Markers

For my building I went on a short walk around Tokyo, using Google Street View. It's not always the best way to find buildings as angles can often get distorted, but I was lucky enough to quickly stumble across something I liked.

Using a .005 Pigma Micron pen, I sketched out the building, keeping an eye on the perspective but not worrying about it too much. I also had the building slightly low on the page so I could have room to add a bit of gestural colour for the sky. I then went over some parts of the sketch with a .02 pen to give it a little more solidity.

The building is quite dull in reality, with little variety in colours. I wanted to reflect this, but also make it just a little more vibrant. I opted for a limited palette of six colours, which would force me to make some decisions about the sketch. This is one of the first times I've ever decided on a colour palette in advance (and I've been drawing for years), and I found it quite beneficial - I'll definitely do it more often now, and possibly for every drawing I do. It helps save time in the long run as you're not constantly choosing new colours.

First I used pale blue, dark grey and a burnt orange to do the main faces of the building. I also used a little yellow in some areas. Interestingly, although in the case of the roof edge it was applied on top of the blue, it still served to lighten that area. Just these four colours already bring the pen drawing to life.

I decided there were areas of shadow that needed to be darker, so added the red to go over the dark greys. I then also used the dark red over the burnt orange of the wooden door frame. I think this application was successful, but I'm not sure I'd use the red for the shadows again. It almost works, but not quite.

As I wasn't totally happy with the red, I decided to make the shadows really dark by going over them with a black brush pen. It also serves to accentuate the graphic nature of the sketch. I then used a Tippex pen to add the cable from the air conditioning unit, and that was the sketch finished. This was then scanned and I boosted the colours slightly - I think this helps make it stand out on a computer or phone screen.

All that's left now is to share this online, and go draw some more. Maybe I'll find something in my hometown next time...

EDIT: In hindsight, I think perhaps adding the heavy black shadows was the wrong thing to do, and the shadows in the first coloured version work the best. I think there's probably a point where you stop drawing the photo and start working on your own version of it, and in adding the heavy shadows I was still trying to recreate the photo. It would have been wise to get to a certain point and step away from it, rather than plough on, making decisions that didn't necessarily need to be made.

However, I'm still pleased with what I did, and the error is a lesson in itself.