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/
