Looking Up!

It seems I often travel when it’s hot outside, so just when I think I’m about to drop from heat, I find a cool, dark church and slide into a pew to draw. I love the challenge of these perspective views, they really make my brain work hard! Plus I get a chance to cool down, maybe listen to some lovely music or a mass in progress. This week, I’ve been posting a collection of these drawings to IG and FB, most are images as I snapped a quick photo before they were painted on location. Usually it’s very dark in side, so it is both difficult to see what I’m drawing and painting, and even more problematic when I try to take a photo of the sketch!

The first of these was in Paris, a whopping 11 years ago –I almost refuse to believe it’s been that long– and I was in France with a 3-month architecture fellowship, The Gabriel Prize. It was a life-changing experience for me, and it’s also where I started to sketch in earnest and post my sketches online. One day, I decided to head off toward the Pantheon. It started to rain just as I was passing in front of Nôtre Dame Cathedral, so I made a quick left and headed in. Mass was in progress so the lights were turned up, and in true Urban Sketchers style, I decided to draw what was right in front of me. And my gosh, with the fire in April 2019, I’m so glad that I did. I’ve captured that space both on paper, and more important, in my mind and memory, it’s now a part of my DNA.

For me, sketching these spaces is like solving a puzzle. There is a grid to the structure that usually consists of columns and arches, so that is what I typically draw in first, very lightly. I will also start with what I call the “Shape of the Space”, the two columns and an arch in the middle of the space that gives me information about heights/widths, and proportions. Once that is blocked in on my paper, it’s just a matter of filling the details.

All but one were painted on location, but I love the web and intricacy of the line drawings almost more than the finished piece. Once the line drawing is done, I usually throw it down on the ground and snap a photo. This sketch below of San Giuseppe in Rome did not get color, as I ran out of time before the building closed. The caretaker was kind enough to give me a few extra minutes to finish the linework.

Below is my second church interior ever, also done back in 2013 in Civita di Bagnoregio, Italy, where I now teach a workshop most years. This was the first time I exaggerated the angle of the columns to either side to give the feeling of a 3-point perspective looking up.

Below is a church in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, teaching there last year with Studio 56.

This sketch below was in Toulouse, Saint Sernin. A Medieval basilica, it was deceptively difficult, mostly because the space is so narrow (being that it’s an older church, they hadn’t completely worked out wider structural spans yet!)

In progress at Sant’Andrea in Rome. You can see my arch and columns in the center where I start the sketch, the vanishing point and the eye level line all clearly drawn in. Arches on the right are blocked in, and because I’m right-handed, I start the final linework in another layer working left to right.

I’m figuring out that LOTS of sketchers post images that were in fact done in the studio (look closely!), so I always try to show a photo of the sketch on the spot so that you can tell it was truly done on location! An Urban Sketcher to the core!

Many more church interiors where these came from, but I hope that you like this sampling! Let me know if you want to see more of these kinds of sketches!