A Visit to Southwell Minster

My first visit to Southwell Minster was about 20 years ago and I remember it well. I was an architectural student on a study visit with our history professor James Stevens Curl. We arrived by coach to be greeted by a freezing wind and driving rain, I stood admiring the entrance to the minster as my fellow students were being ushered from the warmth of the vehicle to the exposed grounds, lawns and graves. After a short while I turned around to find two of my friends huddled behind me using me as shelter. Despite the weather the talk and walk around by our professor was excellent, we were taken on a trip through time as descriptions of the geometric limitations of the romanesque arch transformed into the gothic and every word seemed to be accompanied with a glorious and carefully detailed piece of architecture within the Minster.

Now I am lucky enough to live near to Southwell and it is always a pleasure to visit and enjoy the sights with an informed and grateful eye. My last visit was to take a few pictures for a sepia ink illustration I had in mind. Camera in hand I found myself on the same grounds, but this time enjoying a sunny day. After an hour or so of reacquainting myself and getting as many reasonable images as I could with my limited photography skills I wandered inside to leave a donation and headed for home.

Here are a sequence of photos showing the development of the illustration. As usual I use Winsor and Newton Drawing and Calligraphy inks, the drawing inks are brush applied and start off in a watered down state to allow me to build up the layers and get a feel for the sepia tones to provide a ghost image of the building and landscape. Once I have this I switch to the acrylic calligraphy ink and the pens to begin defining the detail and concentrating on bringing out the form of the building. The pens I use vary from an old fashioned dip pen, a Rotring art pen and a Rotring Isograph for the fine details.

Next stop on my ink illustration trip around Nottinghamshire is the village of South Scarle.

Further References:

http://www.southwellminster.org/

http://jamesstevenscurl.com/about-james-stevens-curl

http://www.winsornewton.com/uk/

St Giles, Holme, Nottinghamshire

Earlier this year I took a trip out to visit some of the churches around the North Nottinghamshire area to reacquaint myself with traditional architecture and the vernacular. This last year or so much of my work has centred around industrial buildings and helping architects, engineers and contractors to understand ways of putting elements together so it was a pleasure to enjoy the sunshine and take time to enjoy the traditional.

I decided to break out the sepia inks and capture a scene of St Giles church in Holme, I have added these images to our twitter feed but I felt it might be interesting to add them onto a single blog post so the process can be followed.

I use Winsor & Newton drawings and sepia inks to achieve this effect. The tools range from brushes, Roting art pen (with a modified cartridge to allow bottled ink to be used) a Rotring Isograph .18mm technical pen & a traditional dip pen too.

Hope you enjoy the process.

Next stop will be Southwell Minster, traditional architecture on a very different scale!

A Shift in Perspective

Earlier in the week I wandered back home from from a clients office to find a letter from who else but David Cameron. I had a feeling it was genuine because of the mass produced signature and the "we know it has been tough for small businesses" rhetoric. The long and short of the letter seemed to suggest some type of tax break and a request to consider employing someone. While my partner carried the letter away to feed the shredder I gave the matter a little thought.

It seems quite a few people leaving schools and universities can be lacking in basic skills. It can be quite easy to find someone who is capable of operating a computer, but areas involving reasoning, craftsmanship and the fine line between creative flare and real world experience to problem solving are sometimes not what I would hope for. Recently we were contacted by an architecture student who was offering to work for us for free, sadly we were not able to help her as she had chosen to attend a university who concentrates heavily on conceptual architecture and does not cover many of the skills and specialities we work with. In essence after all her studies I would have needed to train her from scratch and invest a considerable amount of time to begin getting her proficient in our field. It is surprising how precious your time becomes when you are trying to ensure a continual stream of both work and income.

Today I found myself back in a clients office working on a couple of schemes. After a few busy (and productive) hours shut off from the clatter of the office environment with headphones, I took a break to find my clients employees discussing a howler of a mistake on a CV submitted for an apprentice position within their company. The applicant had listed "time keeping" as one of his strongest points and had backed up his statement by  presumably attempting to say "he always turned up early for a shift", sadly his typo was to miss the f from the word shift. I found myself wondering if the mistake was just clumsy or perhaps deliberate after someone cajoled him into applying for an unwanted position.

Despite some of the head shaking moments, onwards we go taking delight and inspiration from those with a dedication and a passion within their life and remembering to learn from the mistakes along the way. It seems when you have a passion for what you are doing, the mistakes are still hard but are approached differently and the willingness to learn and improve becomes stronger.

Grass Roof Technical Sketch

Recently we (and our good friends from Green Igloo) have been fortunate enough to be appointed to do the technical drawings for a grass roof extension in a beautiful area of Derbyshire. The client had a few questions about the appearance of the eaves and the way it could go together. Seemed like a perfect opportunity to put pen to paper and give them an indicative sketch.

Swinderby Church in Sepia Inks

I have been using brown and sepia tone inks for a number of years now, however last month I decided to experiment with the technique a little further and attempt to make some improvements. I chose the subject of the church in Swinderby, Lincolnshire. The sandstone on the main church together with the timber framed and shingled gate seemed to lend itself well to the possibility of a monotone illustration. The many years this church has stood within the village and the long effects of the weather have also softened the materials and edges, adding to the beauty of this wonderful old building.

After outlining the illustration in a light pencil line onto watercolour board I applied a brush wash of the diluted Winsor & Newton peat brown drawing ink to add in the sky and base tones. The ink can be added in layers to build up the wash effect and colour depth but I have never been entirely happy with the ink when applying it with a dip pen and I have stayed away from using it with Rotring Isograph technical pens for fear of ruining the nib. For this reason I switched to the Winsor & Newton sepia calligraphy ink.

The calligraphy ink, was both predictable and gave a deep defined colour from both the technical pen and the dip pen allowing me to get the definition I wanted around the foliage, forms and the shadows. All in all I was pleased with the combination and performance of the different inks. A little knowledge and experimentation with different types of inks is well worth while for those who wish to get familiar with the medium and will help control the extremes of wash and depth to gain the effect desired for the subject.

Stone Pillar for Set

Here is an initial sketch for a stone effect pillar for a guards gate set.

Possibly built from layered sheets of plastazote the intention is for it to be light, stackable and as safe as possible should anyone fall onto it during use.

The recess and flat top surface would allow for removable led lanterns or glow sticks to sit on it.

The base would fix to the ground to try & prevent it blowing away during windy events. This would need covering with foam rubble and artificial greenery to allow it to blend in.

The Detailing of Industrial Architecture

Over the years we have had an involvement in many different fields of architecture, one of these is the industrial sector. It may not have the appeal of working with historical buildings or the higher specification of materials and costs of leisure or retail, but it still requires care and precision. Many of the challenges are the detailing of fire walls, the coordination of process equipment and services together with the requirements of the structural engineer.

The tried and tested method of sketching still works, forming the link between the disciplines and giving an indication of the implications of requirements. Below are a small selection of sketches for recent projects we have been working on with a client.

Composite fire wall detailing at column splice positions 

Detailing of a removable concrete push wall (cladding above must remain in place

Steel corbel penetrations through a fire wall (fire wall is also an insulated thermal wall for an adjoining office)

Sketch detail of insulated cladding on steel frame sitting on insitu concrete wall