Edinburgh A3 Sketch

 

Ok, so I will admit that I did take a break yesterday. The Chester sketch took me about 15 hours over 4 days. Today I just concentrated on this sketch. I did it in 3 sessions today - 3 hours this morning - and then another 2 sessions of two hours each this afternoon. This time, though, I took a few more pictures while I was making it than I did with the Chester sketch.

Now, maybe you remember that with the Chester sketch I started in the middle, then worked to the right, then came back to the middle and worked to the left? Well, I did. This time I started with the wee circular classical temple thingy on the left.

After this, I felt that I ought to break with my usual slapdash habits, and sketch out an outline of the skyline at least. At this stage I didn't exactly have a hard and fast plan of action, but then I never do for that matter. The buildings to the left have been sketched in, and it also seemed to me that the bridge would be a useful reference point from which to proceed. I was leaving most of the foliage for the time being. 

Here you can see that by and large I was working inexorably left to right. Well, it looks that way, but actually there was still work to do on the base of the temple at this point. By the point I took this next photo I was already well into the first afternoon session.

I kept on plugging away this afternoon. I do always find that when I'm working on a project like this I do flit from one part to another, rather than working methodically. By the time I took this 4th photo I was a good two hours away from finishing, but I was starting to believe that I would actually finish it today The left hand side of the picture is complete by this stage, and of what's left I was pretty sure it would be the buildings at the op which were going to take the most time. 

Getting there by this point. The foliage and the nearer buildings at the bottom of the picture are all done now. There's just the castle in the background and the buildings and little bits of foliage below it. 

This is the last 'in progress' photo I took. It probably illustrates my slapdash method as much as any. I carried on working, hopping from bit to bit, then found that I was left with just this negative space in the middle. 

I mean, I suppose there was some method in this - I really wanted to make sure that the tower and the castle were done as well as I could, whereas the stuff to go into the space was less important, and to an extent I could busk it to make it fit in So here's the finished sketch in the book.