Architecture Drawing

It was in the first house I lived in that I wanted to be an architecture (which means I was 9 years old or younger).  I loved playing with legos and Lincoln Logs and making forts, and I loved drawing houses and floorplans, so being an architect seemed to fit.  Because I was young, I was seemingly turned away from architecture when I found out that it involved more than just drawing pictures of houses.  You had to know math and engineering and you had to work with contractors.  It lost its charm.  Knowing what I know now (including what I know about myself), I think I would have really enjoyed being an architect, because on top of the artistic design aspect of the job, there is clearly the need for problem solving, which I very much enjoy.

Pueblo House drawing done in 5th or 6th grade

When I was sixth grade, I encountered a substitute school teacher by the name of Ira Shander.  Since he was an artist, he would include art lessons when he substituted for the day.  I remember we were drawing the Kremlin, and he liked what I was doing.  He later gave me some postcard and greeting card examples of his work where he would essentially draw architecturally interesting homes for rich people.  Think rich people living in colonial houses from the colonial period throwing parties or just sending Christmas cards with their fancy rich houses drawn on the card via a commissioned illustration.  He also did historical buildings like those in Independence Mall as well as historic lighthouses.

Fast forward to now, and my girlfriend is what you might call a lifelong student of architecture, with a penchant for Victorian homes. Thus, my latest project.  I didn't want to draw a random Victorian house that I saw.  I don't mind drawing from life, but I much more enjoy creating myself.  So, instead I looked at Victorian architecture in pictures and in person, took notes, and got familiar drawing their forms.  So, I essentially made a Franken-house.  This is a made-up house, one that does not exist anywhere.  Perhaps that is for the best since I don't know much about structural integrity.  One thing was for sure--I had to make sure it had a mansard roof.  I also liked the idea of tower/turret addition.  I started off with a regular roof and changed it to an onion style roof.  Here are some of the preliminary sketches in my small sketchbook.

The basics and some of the details are right there in the thumbnail sketches, including my plan to show the front gate and surrounding flora.   Here is the first draft.  I have laid down pretty much most of the pencils or at least pencils for guidelines.

Now here is the top half of the house with mostly finalized pencils.  I like how this is progressing, and I am excited to see this thing inked.  On thing that I changed was how I detailed the roof.  I started off drawing an open, angled backwards "L" shape for the shingles.  I changed this to individually drawn and layered shingles, and I think this was a big improvement.

As you can see, the shrubberies I added were pretty much blobbish guidelines.  I inked in the leaves and shadowing freehand.  This is a piece that clearly could have gone on for much longer.  I don't like drawing clouds, so I didn't.  I could have inked in every pebble of every stone lining the path, but I also wanted to vague spaces so things like the footpath wouldn't be distracting.  Here is the almost final product.  I actually added gray ink shadow lines to the piece as a final touch and something that would make it unique and not what I have scanned or what I will turn into a print.

I plan on making this into a card product and posting it to an Etsy shop.  I will update this post when that happens.  I may also color it in and make a print out of it.