Step by Step

drawing board

I hadn’t realised how abstract and scribbly my artwork was in close-up until I scaled this drawing of Addingford Steps. I drew a grid over my A4 print, but the original is just six inches tall.

scaling up
I drew with my Lamy Nexx fountain pen with a 1.1mm italic nib using DeAtramentis Archive Ink, which dries quickly on this smooth paper surface and becomes waterproof.

It was like doing a jigsaw: the individual squares sometimes didn’t look like anything at all, also, because I’m working on A1 foamboard in portrait format, I turned the artwork on its side, so that it was easier to reach, and painted it in two halves, so some things, such as the perspective of the foreground handrail, didn’t make any sense to me until I saw it right way up.

Just the watercolour to add now, which is a a quick job compared with reconstructing my drawing.