I’ve turned my interest back to architecture this weekend as I started a new course on Domestika with a brilliant artist called Albert Kiefer who I have followed for quite a while now on Instagram.
His free and open style has really inspired me to revisit the illustrations I did for my home town of Pocklington that got me through much of the lockdown periods.
Likely Architecture
I really liked the style of these and the use of watercolour too. However, I always felt that they were lacking a little depth having no perspective and they seem to be floating on the white paper.
Albert is promoting the use of marker pens which I used in art college and during the days when I worked in Advertising. But today the Copic Markers are just so expensive. So I might just stick to my watercolours.
So I will have to give it a little time to run through the course and I will try and document my progress here, warts and all. That might be interesting to someone, or at least cathartic for me to air my successes and failures.
Unlikely Architecture
All this thinking of architecture led me to think about this series that I did some time ago. I think they were a precursor to my Pocklington series and very much in a cartoon style.
The Cock Inn
Anyone who knows me, knows that I can’t let any kind of double entendre slide by unnoticed and I have passed this gift to my son. I love the name of this pub, and I know for definite that there is one in the northern suburbs of Sheffield. So there are quite possibly a lot of Cock Inn’s around the country.
Duwey, Cheatum & Howe, Lawyers
Keeping the double entendre going in a much more family friendly vein. I think I initially had a whole townful of building like this in mind. Maybe I’ll makes some more in parallel to my more serious architectural sketches.
No. 4 “SOLD”
I remember enjoying this one. It’s funny how you get in the swing of things after having done a few. Watercolour for me is a string of happy accidents, but this day the paint seemed to work.
You’ll hopefully have noticed by now that I’m using the footprint of each one. The construction is pretty much traced and they are the exact proportions to fit comfortably on A4 paper.
This is the first time I drew the cactus, which has become a little trademark in my Unlikely Stories Series…
The Local Fire Station
The “Fire Department” doors are pretty much taken from the American style. I have travelled the US extensively and distinctly remember a Boston station having these large red wooden doors.
In the US, it’s customary for each fire station to have a Spotted Dalmation as the department’s mascot or pet. I am not sure why…
The Whole Hog
This is possibly one of my favourites. I like the detail of the cuts of meat and dead birds in the window.
I also started to use the POSCA white line pens to pick out the details here. Once the dark paint goes down, the line work tends to get a little lost.
I am sure they would be shut down immediately if someone spotted the meat cleaver wobbling on the window above.
The Clock Tower
I think this is one of my first attempts at this series due to it’s simplicity. I really like the weather wooden boards, like it was once a pristine white clock tower when it was built. It feels quite Scandinavian to me.
I recently saw a video on Youtube that talked about the use of clock towers on British supermarkets and that most of them don’t work. Some architect designed one in Southern England in the 1950’s to make them more sympathetic to English towns. The new supermarkets looked very brutalist and very American. It quickly became a template for supermarkets throughout the country, except a working clock was a detail too far.
I have a totally unnecessary reference to Room 101.
Wee House
Another early version of the Unlikely Architecture series. Most likely the first one I ever did.
The watercolour for the wall turned out perfect, and I love the quaint roof tiling.
The grandiose archaic door is also like something from a medieval castle with the big bras hinges.
Feel free to click on the images and make some comments on my Flickr page!