The paintings of all the buildings I wanted to include are now complete. I’ve scanned them and worked out the positioning. The positioning I decided on was slightly different to how I planned. I decided to include Edith New’s house butted against Richard Jefferies family home since when I came to paint Arthur Carron’s house I noticed it had a bay on the right hand side.
Swindon Blue Plaque Buildings without background
Next I had to decide how I was going to do the background. I decided to use an application I have on my computer called Artrage. I have an old version but it’s amazing and it’s not very expensive. I have a screen on my PC that uses a pressure sensitive stylus. The result of using this with Artrage closely resembles painting on paper. I think most commercial art is done like this now. David Hockney uses an iPad in a similar way to produce some of his artwork these days.
Using Artrage to add a background
The beauty of adding a background like this is you can easily modify it or even completely start over. Something that isn’t possible when using wet paint and paper. The disadvantage is you can spend ages on it trying to get it perfect. Digital art like this is OK for adding backgrounds but I wouldn’t want to use it for the entire piece. There’s something special about using a paint brush on paper that you can never fully recreate with a computer.
The next part of the project is drafting out a brief piece of text to go below each building and then, using my best handwriting, add this to the final picture.
Use of rulers in art is an interesting subject. Some people frown at the use of rulers while others argue that if you need to draw a straight line, a ruler is the best thing to use. I used a ruler to do my Wood Street panoramic and I don’t see anything wrong with doing that. However, for this project I’ve had a change of heart. There is something appealing about the imperfections you get when you do a drawing freehand. As a result for this project, I’m not using a ruler to draw my pen lines.
The GWR Health Fund building is now almost complete. Just need to add a bit of shadowing. I find doing shadows difficult. Sometimes they can be too deep and sometimes not deep enough. I was chatting to Richard Naylor at Swindon Artists Forum the other day and his advice was to build up the depth of shadows using glazes. Glazes are dilute washes which you put on, allow to dry and keep reapplying, letting dry between applications, until the desired depth of colour is obtained.
This is my favourite part of producing pictures of buildings. It is where I get the study the building in detail. I have been past this building numerous times in my life and have just thought of it as an old drab red brick building. However, studying its structure for the picture I became aware, for the first time, of the bell tower with the weathervane on top, the finials on the slate roof and the decorative stone work. This really is a splendid building.
The rough sketches of all the Blue Plaque buildings I intend to include in the final picture are now complete. I was surprised how easy it was in some instances to do these sketches just using the views from Google Earth. It makes me wonder whether I might, in future, do similar pictures of places I’ve not visited. Any way, I’ve decided to cluster some buildings together in a terrace and leave some and detached. The Richard Jefferies Museum, for example. I don’t think would have looked right as part of a terrace. Similarly for the GWR Medical Fund HQ and the Norman Barbeau house.
Now I have to consider scale and style and I move towards the finished work. I will be using pen and watercolour but whether I use it in the style I did for the Wood Street work or whether I do it in a less realistic, more stylised way. I think I’m going to start on the GWR Medical Fund HQ building as this is the largest of the buildings and will be the centrepiece of the work.
I will be doing the buildings in small groups or as individual pictures which I will then scan and combine for the finished work. I prefer to work this way for panoramic pictures. It’s much easier to work with smaller pieces of A3 or A4 paper than a large single sheet..
Since 2016, Blue Plaques have started to appear on buildings in Swindon celebrating the birth places and homes of some of Swindon’s famous people as well as places of historical interest. The project has been undertaken by Swindon Heritage and more information can be found here.
I have an interest in painting local architecture. I recently completed a streetscape of one side of Wood Street in Swindon. In producing this work I was influenced by the work of The Shrewsbury Streetscape Project. In this project architect James St Clair Wade has sketched accurately with amazing attention to detail many of the streets in Shrewsbury which contain magnificent buildings. Although I followed James’ approach in many areas; for example producing images of a few buildings at a time and then scanning them and digitally stitching them together, I did do some things different to James. Whereas James uses a pencil for his outlines, I decided to use pens and rather than colour the drawings with colouring pencils I decided to use watercolour to give less of an architect’s drawing finish to one that resembles a fine art painting. I also decided to add a sky and pavement to my work.
On completion of my Wood Street work, I came across other artists that were producing streetscapes. One in particular caught my eye was Elaine Gill. I have been blown away by Elaine’s work. I love the way Elaine takes a theme like pubs of an area and produces pictures of them as though they were buildings down a single street. I took this approach when I produced my Pubs of Old Town Picture. This picture is a homage to Elaine.
Old Town Pubs – Past & Present
Elaine Gill produced a picture containing Blue Plaque buildings of London and I have decided to do the same with the Swindon Blue Plaque buildings. Elaine lives in Tunbridge Wells and I think it is unlikely that she’d undertake such a project herself so I like to think I’m not going to be treading on her toes.
As of today I’m at the planning stage. What I’m intending to do is take images of the buildings off Google Earth and produce a series of rough sketches. Here is an example of two buildings I drew today.
Rough sketches of two Blue Plaque buildings
The purpose of these rough sketchings is to determine how I lay the buildings out in the final picture. Having scanned them all I will be able to move them around to choose the best order to put them in. The largest buildings are the old Evening Advertiser building in Victoria Road and the Health Hydro building. I expect I will position these in the centre but we’ll have to see how it all looks.
So I’m going to be busy over the next few days doing my sketching. Once I’ve decided on the order I will have to decide on the style for the finished work. I will then venture out around the streets of Swindon on my bike to take more detailed photographs to work from. And what about the final picture? Should I go for something very accurate and detailed like I did for the Wood Street streetscape or should I move towards something perhaps less realistic but aesthetically more pleasing more in the style of Elaine Gill? I don’t know yet. I may do one or two buildings in different styles to see which I prefer. It’s all very exciting and I really looking forward to getting this project going.
