Day 678: 59 St James Pl, New York City

Day 678: 59 St James Pl, New York City

Reference view: google streetview

Time taken: 30 minutes

So, something a bit different for yesterdays sketch (yep, were nearly caught up!) as I choose to do a modern sky scrape (or at least more modern than the apartments I have been sketching though, I’ve no idea what this skyscraper is or who it belongs too). Quite a bit different than the ones that I have been doing and honestly, I think I like the apartments better but I like the true high rise look it had amongst the apartments surrounding it (there is a truly huge building to the right of it that seemed to go on for miles!). Shading was a bit annoying though as it looks quite flat unlike the actual building but the details and shape are there!

Till next time!

Day 677: 327 Church St, New York

Day 677: 327 Church St, New York

Reference view: google streetview

Time taken: 30 minutes

So, another random New York building found through the pot luck of the random view button on google streetview, this time showing a very tall and thin building stood on its own on the street. Quite an interesting building sat there all on its own, though I think the site to the right of it may have made the  building look a little bit less out of place when it was there, as the site was a construction site in the streetview (or, at least a dirt plot). Still I loved how this little apartment building looked and how fun the sketch was, with the windows interestingly weighted to the left hand side (nope, I didn’t just forget to add the windows details in to the right hand side), and not forgetting the random little van parked outside, good fun!

Till next time!

Day 676: 42 7th Ave S, New York

Day 676: 42 7th Ave S, New York

Reference view: google streetview

Time taken: 35 minutes

This was a fun sketch. Basically I saw one of the rather numerous water tanks that you find on top of a lot of the older high rises in New York and wanted to get a sketch of one so after a bit of searching around I came across this view of one atop this corner block. Really happy with the sketch as well as I was able to get a lot of detail down on the building that was the focus of the sketch and even get a fair amount of detail down on the building next to it. Guess I just got lucky with efficiency on this one!

Till next time!

 

Day 675: 385 Holland Tunnel, New York

Day 675: 385 Holland Tunnel, New York

Reference image: google streetview

Time taken: 25 minutes

Bit of a small and simple sketch today from New York as I was looking after my son while doing it so didn’t get much time to get that far with it. Still I think it captures the building quite well and looks pretty accurate which is pretty cool as its actually a really small scale sketch and was quite fiddly.

Till next time!

Day 674: 281-285 Church St, New York

Day 674: 281-285 Church St, New York

Reference view: google streetview

Time taken: 30 minutes

So, after the day before sketch I hit the randomise button on google streetview and I bought up this (or just down the street I think but this was much more interesting). Really loved the little café with the buildings around it being a lot taller, kind of gave the café itself a lot more charm as it looks like its a bit out of place but still retains the same urban look as the buildings around it.

Anyway, pretty happy with the sketch. Not completely accurate with scale and some placement but I think a lot of these things are just stuff I notice as I’m the one sketching it, and are probably things that the casual observer wouldn’t, so pointing them out isn’t doing me any favours but oh well, you guys are probably used to it by now. Plus having a point to concentrate on improving on isn’t a bad thing right? (provided of course that I actually do improve on it)

Till next time!

 

Day 673: 23 Lispenard St New York City

Day 673: 23 Lispenard St New York City

Reference image: google streetview

Time taken: 35 minutes

So, bit of a change for day 671 as we’ve flown half way across the world and gone from a town of 6,000 people to a city of slightly more than that (8,000,000 in the city proper and 20,000,000 in the metro area) as were now in New York, back with the random streetview sketches. Quite an interesting place to sketch as well as, even though all the buildings are apartment blocks there is a lot of variety in them as hopefully I’ll be able to show over the sketches that I do here (there will be a few at least), starting with one of some random apartments with some interesting details to them. Didn’t manage to get all the details down as accurately I hoped with it but I think it was a bit of a learning curve as they have a lot more details on them than I thought they did in the first place.

One thing is for sure though. The sure as hell love external fire exits in the US!

Till next time!

Day 672: Seaton Clocktower

Day 672: Seaton Clocktower

Reference image: Personal photo

Time Taken: 30 minutes

So, another sketch of a part of my local town and again one that I’ve sketched before, here day 223: Jubliee Tower Seaton. This time were on the opposite side of the tower and its obviously in black and white rather than the previous sketch which was in colour (and a bit garish and bright colour at that). I definitely think it shows that I’ve improved over the last couple of hundred days of sketching, with a much better composed and accurate sketch which took only 30 minutes as opposed to the previous one which I think I spent over an hour on.

I also really like the foliage in this one as I think I managed to make it look like different plants without making it look messy or overbearing and ruining the focus of the sketch which is something that I usually struggle with.

So, I hope you all agree that I’ve improved since the last time I did this sketch and it’s actually quite interesting and fun to redo sketches that I did early on in this blog, so I might ty and do a few more in the future.

Till next time!

 

Day 671: Water Tower, South Devon Railway

Day 671: Water Tower, South Devon Railway

Reference photo: Personal photo

Time taken: 20 minutes

So, this was a quick sketch that I managed to get done of the water tower that’s at the South Devon Railway Buckfastleigh station (the one that I’ve done a load of sketches from a little while ago). Just found it on my phone and thought it would make a nice quick easy subject to sketch. I was meant to actually spend longer on it and get some more of the background in, but my son woke up and I decided to just leave it as it was in the end as I quite liked where it was at and didn’t really think adding more stuff would necessarily make it look any better. Hopefully a choice that you lot will agree with!

Till next time!

Day 670: Axmouth Harbour

Day 670: Axmouth Harbour

Reference image: Personal photo

Time taken: 35 minutes

So, this I really like. Its another sketch of the harbour that makes up the background of this blog just this time with a bit more detail and in black and white. In fact I may have gone a bit heavy on the detail for what is meant to be a 30 minute sketch but what is here I do really like. So much so that I think I might try and finish a version of this off as a personal piece (seeing as I don’t actually have anything I’ve drawn on show in my own home, though I do in my parents and wife’s gran’s).

Hopefully it’ll turn out as well as this bit did but we’ll have to wait and see (if I actually get round to doing it!). Till then I hope you lot enjoy this sketch as I really did.

Till next time!