Medieval Landscape

My next task was to draw a medieval landscape. I chose to draw this famous medieval street in York as I found the composition of the building and angles to be very appealing. I really liked how the buildings were slanted in some places due to them being old. This street is the oldest street in the UK and I thought that it had lots of character. The building looked very skewed in places due to ageing and I loved how there were elements of modern life in them such as the little modern shops that were on the ground floor of each one. The cobbled street going through really adds to the composition and I liked how well the one point perspective set up really showcased how these houses had aged over time. 

When colouring my piece, as I had chosen to use coloured pencil again, I really wanted to capture how the buildings had aged where plaster and bricks had worn away or rotted. I tried to showcase texture and colour palette of the landscape as accurately as I could in order to show the ageing and medieval elements of it. I tried hard to capture the authenticity; however, I think because the buildings were quite slanted in some places it makes the scene look quite skewed and unstructured. If I were to do this again, I would consider this and possibly start drawing from lower down, looking up at the buildings to create more of a sense of depth. For this task, I used my observational skills and knowledge of one point perspective along with assessing the colour palette and the atmosphere of the landscape. It was quite a bright day so I wanted to create a bright and lively atmosphere to the piece through the saturation and tones of the colours I chose, whilst showcasing the medieval assets and tones alongside this. 

To improve this piece I would slightly reconsider the angle at which I decided to draw, along with how the colours would possibly desaturate as they go further away from my viewpoint. I think this would create a more realistic sense of depth within the piece so that the eye would really follow down the street and into the areas further away whilst also bringing out the assets which are nearer to my viewpoint. 

This is one of my process pictures. As you can see, I started building up the tones slowly so that I could get a good blend and an accurate result. This piece overall took quite a while to complete as there were a number of elements to consider. However, I enjoyed using the coloured pencils to present tones in the piece. Next time, I will consider how the saturation and tone might change with depth.