The picture is from a calendar my art teacher has, so I'd like to credit Richard Watson for his fabulous photo.
Incredibly, she's [I've decided that something this lovely and delicate MUST be female] celebrating her 875th birthday this year, as she was originally built in 1132, but fell into disrepair after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1538.
I made the classic mistake in art class this week of falling in love with the possibilities of recreating the abbey's perspective - whilst totally disregarding my lack of skill in the area! As I've said before, I like a challenge and this one is certainly stretching me.
This is my progress so far. I have used pencil to start with [I definitely felt the need for a safety net] and started to ink in the lines yesterday with my trusty Staedlter Mars 0.18mm.
It's a pretty big piece, I really struggled to fit it onto the scanner, and ended up chopping off half of her east wing! And since I started inking, I've noticed just how wonky my lines are around the windows. But, as a whole, I'm starting to like it! It's a major investment in time and energy, but I do feel that I'm learning and getting better as I do it.
The bottom middle section is the next challenge. It's mostly snow covered rubble, so I'm going to have to get clever about trying to depict this with depth, as opposed to just a scribbly mess! I'm thinking of strategically placing the snow to depict the depth as white areas, which I've already started to pencil in.
If anyone has any other ideas or advice, please do chip in with the comments... [HEEEEELPPPP!]
Right. I'm now a whole pot of tea into the day and I'm twitching to get started, wish me luck and have a fabulous day yourselves!
