In search of references

Step one of this WIP is to go to the castle and take some pictures. I will be visiting the castle this week to get a feel for what needs to be done and how to best develop the composition.  You may recall my tip on Steps for better compositions.The steps are :

1 Pick a good subject

The subjects were chosen to represent the evolution of a castle over time and how it can be paralleled with the changes in Swiss society.

2 Choose the size you want

This particular drawing will be one of the three main drawings of the series. As was with the "Chateau d'Aigle", this drawing will be on 360 gsm, 50cm by 70 cm Aches hot pressed paper

3 Create your own crop

I have several photo references of this castle and it is just a 20 minutes from my home. I will be studying as many angles as I can of this subject and try to come up with a composition that falls in line with the theme of change from closed to open. I’m going to consider a long top to bottom crop in portrait. The reason for this is that the main tower of this castle is the focus of the drawing. By cropping the castle to show mainly this tower will give me the lines that I’m looking for.

4 Think about placement

I will be placing the main tower in the center. I want to keep a solid balance in each of the three principle drawings. I will be more creative with placement in the subordinate drawings.

5 Control your lines

I will control the lines of this drawing to bring attention to that main tower in the center of the drawing. I will do this by selecting the proper angle of the castle where the surrounding objects, houses, trees, sky, will pull the viewers attention to the main tower.

6 Balance positive and negative space

This balance will be created with some atmospheric perspective and a tapering off from top to bottom to give a kind of triangle. form to the overall drawing.

7 Add contrast

The contrast in the lower subjects should allow me to bring forward the main tower.

8 Simplify distracting elements

In this case the distracting elements might be things like electricity or telephone wires and other distracting elements of our time.

Reference Sketch

This is a sketch that I did of the castle. I like this angle and view. Originally I wanted to have the main tower more centered, so I will crop the image and draw it in portrait rather than landscape format. This cropping and angle better represents that theme of openness. The walls are hidden by homes and vegetation. We can still see that there is a castle, but the castle is not a fortress. It has become a part of the village.

Project Line Drawing

This is a photo of th final sketch. I had to increase the contrast so that you would be able to see the lines. This is drawn on Arches Aquarelle with a 4 cm margin. As with the Chateau d'Aigle drawing, the total visible area will be 68.5cm by 49 cm. Each of the three anchor drawings will be this size.

I try to keep the lines I use to a minimum so that I can maintain the freedom to interpret the drawing as I go. At the same time I have enough reference lines so I do not have to continually refer to a reference. It was also very important to draw the smaller reference sketch to get better acquainted with the subject.

Drawing the Background Clouds

I have started the clouds for the drawing. The clouds are a very important aspect of this drawing. I will render the clouds so that they have a very high contrast with the castle. I want the clouds to almost dominate the drawing. The areas of sky will be black and the clouds will have the full range of tone, black to white. My intention is that by rendering the clouds in this way the castle will come forward to the front plane of the drawing giving the drawing more depth and dimension.

I start the rendering with F graphite. I hatch three layers on the area that I will be working on. Once I have the base layers down I start a 4th and 5th layer with circulation to even out the layers. I then use a 6B graphite for the sky areas that I am working on.

With the F graphite I start to highlight the outlines of the clouds. I will continue this spontaneous drawing until I'm happy with the overall aspects of the clouds. I will then add several more layers of graphite to bring out the detail that I want. When the clouds are finished, I will have applied at least 8 layers of graphite.

At this stage of the drawing the clouds have 5 or 6 layers of graphite. After applying the F graphite I started to "sculpt" the clouds with a 3B graphite. I apply the layers, blend very lightly with a stump and then pull up graphite with a kneadable eraser. I continue these steps in the effort to build up the layers and details in the clouds. I will continue to render the clouds until I am able to get them in perspective. The clouds on the top third of the paper are very close to the castle and those in the second third are tapering away toward the horizon. I need to develop the clouds to give this perspective of distance.

I decided to go with dark heavy clouds on top tapering back to open sky and then picking up again with some distant clouds with dark and light tones. This helps to bring the castle to the front plane of the drawing. To produce the dark clouds I used a 6B graphite and then went over it with a 4B graphite. I then blended the graphite with a stump to even out the tone. I used a kneadable eraser to pull up some of the graphite to produce the lighter areas in the dark clouds.

Drawing the Castle

The steeple of the main tower is covered in copper and the roof with clay shingles. The copper of the steeple has darkened to almost black where as the shingles are a mix of 4 light tones as can been seen in this color photo. The photograph was taken from the other side of the castle so you do not see the extended roof to the left in my drawing.