Gaining Perspective

7/9/12, Copic Multiliner SP pen, watercolor

In the urban landscape, buildings are almost unavoidable, yet I find myself running from them (sometimes literally) when I have a sketchbook in hand. While some sketchers shy away from drawing people, I have the same reaction toward architectural structures – all those parallel lines that don’t look parallel and all that perspective stuff that if you don’t get right, the whole building looks wrong, even when your brain can’t figure out why.

So I’ve checked out a few library books on architectural sketching and have challenged myself to stop running from buildings. Here’s our neighbor’s house across the street, sketched from our upstairs bedroom window. Let’s just call this a baseline against which I’ll evaluate my progress.