David Drazil - 100 Buildings and Architectural Forms: Step-by-Step Realistic Line Drawing - A Sourcebook for Aspiring Artists and Designers

STEP 1

Next, use the established composition structure and define the main volumes, adding their closest surroundings to provide context. This might include drawing the elements in the foreground, such as vegetation and trees. Blocking out the foreground makes it easier, as we wont need to draw the areas behind these elements.

STEP 2

Add Textures

To express materiality in drawings, add textures suggesting different real-life materials commonly used in architecture, such as timber, stone, concrete, steel, and glass. These textures work as graphic shortcutssimplified versions of realityand add a new layer of information and detail to drawings. The more detail we add, the more the viewers attention is drawn to a certain area of an image. Thats why it makes sense to use selective texturingapplying textures to highlight only the parts of an image on which we want a viewer to focus.

STEP 3

Shading & Final Touches

Finally, to increase contrast and a sense of plasticity, add shading. Shading can be observed from a reference or it can be deliberately decided by an artist. Either way, its a good idea to define the light source and the main direction of light so we know which surfaces should be lit (exposed to light) and which should be shaded (light is blocked by other surfaces).

As for final touches, you may want to erase the original construction guidelines drawn in pencil during the first step and clean up anything unwanted. Optionally, you can add more contextual information by drawing sky or water reflections (as used in other examples in this book).

STEP 4

TIP #1: LEARN TO DRAW LONG, STRAIGHT LINES

All the architectural drawings in this book are based on lines. The lines are used not only for contours, but also for guidelines, constructional lines, shading, hatching, and texturingpretty much everything in a drawing. Youll find out that most of these lines are simply straight and are sometimes very long. Thats why its a great idea to practice drawing confident long, straight lines.

EXERCISE: Grab a blank sheet of paper and fill it with three layers of linesvertical lines, horizontal lines, and diagonal lines. Treat this as a warm-up exercise before drawing, just as you would warm up before any sport activity.

To achieve confidence in long straight lines, I suggest the following: First, draw with your whole your arm, starting the movement from your shoulder, and avoid bending your wrist. Second, look and focus on the endpoint of a line youre drawing. This will help to naturally guide your hand to where youre looking.

TIP #2: VARY THE LINE WEIGHT

Use of different line weightsthicknesses of pen strokesserves well for defining depth planes, for better clarity, and for creating emphasis and contrast in a drawing.