Week 2 - Landscape (Excursion to Bradford Cathedral)

Interior of Bradford Cathedral

These three sketches are studies that I drew from the interior of Bradford Cathedral. Using a black conte crayon I drew these quick 10-minute sketches to show the cathedral in all angles.

Sketch 1:

Focusing on the roof of the cathedral I was able to pick out the colour of the wooden beams using dark tonal shading as these beams were black and the darkest object in the drawing. The natural sunlight from the windows brightens up the roof and the surrounding walls making the beams stand out even more with the light to dark contrast.

This scene is framed by an archway with gives a foreshortening view down to the bottom end of the cathedral and the orthogonal lines from the bottom part of the roof where the beams start and the top peak of the roof where the beams join together lead your eyes right down the cathedral roof where the vanishing point ends.

Sketch 2:

This whole drawing is framed by the archways and giant pillars that decorate the cathedral interior. Focusing on what these frame I drew what was in the centre isle of the cathedral. There is a lot in this drawing with a front layer, middle layer and background.

The front layer is what frames this whole image and leads your eye into the detail of the centre part of this drawing. In the middle layer of this sketch I have drawn the left hand side of the cathedral wall, which shows the roof beams, windows and archways. The archways on the left hand side of the wall and the archways that frame this drawing are the same size however; from the foreshortening angle these archways appear to be increasingly smaller setting a realistic tone to this drawing.

There is an implied line in this drawing which starts from the bottom right hand side of the left pillar and leads your eye straight onto the middle beam and across to the other side of the right pillar. There is also another implied line as your eye is taken from the left pillar right over the arch and to the right pillar.

The background of this drawing is what is behind the middle layers archways. Like the front layers archways these archways also frame the back layer and is like a mirror as the archways continue to frame another image but continuously getting smaller

Sketch 3:

This was a much darker area of the cathedral with no windows around to let in the natural light, which makes very little contrast from shaded areas to lighter areas.

The main focal point in this drawing is the very dark roof as there was very little natural light. Making the wooden beams look even darker against the very dark roof.  Your eye is also led through the centre archway where half of the area within it is covered by a very dark curtain. With this very dark focal point it makes this drawing look very gothic and gives the feeling of a cathedral as you expect them to be usually quite dark. Your eye is also led to the right hand corner where the two walls and roof join together. With the dark beam centralising this point it makes for a very focal point as the eye is drawn to this area.

These drawing where quick sketches I drew to pick out the shape and form of the cathedrals interior. Without going into great detail it is still clear to see what these drawings are as I have used a contrast of shading tones to pick out the main details with these drawings.