Sketching an old house in Ballard
Being Sunday, I decided to go check out a new micro-brewery called Obec Brewing in Ballard, a neighborhood in Seattle. There are so many new breweries that I don't really try to keep up with them anymore. I brought my sketchbook with me just in case, and found this old house!
This is in an industrial area that has encroached into the older neighborhood, so you have lots of smaller, modest older houses sandwiched between warehouses. Not so pretty. But the perfect place apparently for brew houses to pop up. This old empty house, obviously scheduled for demolition, is still hanging on between two newer breweries, one on either side. Stoup Brewing is the other one in case you don't believe me (haha). You can't stand in the way of IPAs, I mean progress. I had to draw this house before it disappeared forever.
Junkyards and alleyways
When it comes to sketching interesting shapes, I'm drawn to junkyards and alleyways. They are so rich in shape and shadow and texture and chaos that it almost seems too easy. It's all there, you just pick what you want to draw and have fun with it!
For this I followed the actual shapes of the house and surrounding things fairly closely, but added my own take to it. I'm not documenting it so much as playing with lights and darks. I like letting little light areas show through dark shapes because it opens them up a bit and gives them what I think of as sparkle. I don't really care if the mattress in the foreground doesn't read as a mattress that well, but I do like the shadow it creates and how it is draped over the retaining wall. Cheers to abandoned houses!
Makes me think of Mike Mignola.
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@jcayne Thanks! I looked him up and yes I can see that. My earlier influences were in the comic book realm, as well as Big Daddy Roth, who I studied with a magnifying glass when I was a kid. It was all that high contrast b&w art like this house drawing. All these years later, still drawing the same way... I just followed you. I think you and have something in common, which is our work is rooted in drawing, not dependent on technology or outside manipulation. I loved figure drawing classes in art school. :)
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