View of the Andes from the Benedictine Monastery Lookout
Sketch of the City and it’s Mountains
At this view, I was amazed at how the buildings met the mountains. The two stood apart but were understood together. Through this sketch, I aimed to capture how the two connected to one another. I imagined that the mountains were hollow on their underside, and the buildings clipped onto the end of the mountains shell. That way, the buildings do not creep onto the mountains at all, but stand at their periphery, dictated by the location and sprawl of the mountains. It is not as if the mountains are more important than the buildings, they are just much larger and the buildings must respect their space. Similarly, the mountains create valleys to respect the cities space.
I am planning to color the sketch in with green and blue alcohol markers, so that the green foreground and blue sky will be colored and mountains and city will not. I believe the color will enhance the emphasis upon the relationship between mountain and city.
View of my sketch and the view
I’m really excited about this sketch and seeing what adding color would look like. There are two things that really stand out to me about the post: 1. The shading technique you used on the mountains, and 2. The simplicity of the city below the mountains. In the past, I’ve actually struggled with both these things. I’m always trying to find new ways to shade to achieve certain effects, and I the method you used was not only very effective, but makes the drawing look very complex with only a few simple repeated strokes. I also never know how detailed I should make some things vs the others in my drawings, and I think you did a really nice job drawing the eye to the mountains and leaving the city very simple with only a few lines and buildings. Overall, very impressive work!!!