This illustrated essay explores specific physical design techniques employed by architects during this golden period of city-building to achieve their remarkable results.
It has just been published by Periodica Polytechnica Architecture (a peer reviewed scientific journal published by the Faculty of Architecture of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics).
Urban buildings constructed in historic city centers of Europe and America in the late 19th and early 20th Century demonstrate a remarkable consistency of architectural excellence and harmony which can be observed from the large urban forms down to minute details.
The comprehensive system of design principles employed by architects of the time in the creation of these buildings has resulted in urban environments that achieve a very high degree of functionality as well as adaptability to the evolving needs of their modern populations.
(Note: For those who are interested in delving even deeper, Section 3 of the essay focuses on the rediscovery of lost classic architectural design instructional texts and contains a recommended reading list).
Would you like to improve the landscape elements in your illustrations? Join me for this quick "how-to" workout to practice a step-by-step process for painting an elm tree in watercolor!
Watercolor is a great medium for quickly capturing accurate form, evocative color and lighting effects. Grab your painting materials and let’s get started!
MATERIALS: You'll need a few simple supplies to follow along with me. Here's a materials list (along with links if you'd like to buy them online).
Cold press means the paper has a medium texture - not too smooth and not too rough. 90lb is a fairly thin watercolor paper. I use it because it will go through a photocopier, which is often useful if I need to quickly transfer a line drawing onto my paper before painting. (In this exercise we’ll be blocking out our drawing directly on the paper though, so a thicker paper like 140lb would work great too).
Paints:
I’m using Windsor and Newton professional artists colors. For this painting I’m using a fairly limited palette of just 6 colors. The first three are primary colors (yellow, red and blue) that mix well together. The last three colors are extras that are useful for occasionally accenting and/or darkening mixtures as needed.
Antwerp Blue - a bright, smooth blue that goes down with a minimum of graininess.
Neutral Tint - a beautiful grey that mixes well with all the other colors to reduce the value and saturation of a mixture when I want to achieve a really dark color.
I like to use tube colors because they make it easy to mix up a large enough quantity of paint for my bigger wet-on-wet washes. (You could do this painting workout with dry pan watercolors too, but you'll just need to spend a bit more time mixing up your paints).
You can buy the watercolors in individual tubes (the small 5ml ones last a long time - the colors I've highlighted are the individual tube colors I could find available online at Amazon), or Windsor and Newton makes a great set available for purchase online with all these colors or pretty close equivalents that should work just fine:
Brush:
A high quality watercolor brush is critical. A good brush will hold a substantial amount of paint which allows you to block in shapes quickly and will also come to a sharp point when it’s wet to allow you to paint small details. For this painting, I’m using just a single “round” shaped sable watercolor brush by Princeton. The size I’m using is a #12.
Watercolor Mixing Palette:
I like to use a palette with separate small wells on the left for squeezing out a pea-sized bit of paint straight from each of my tubes (a little bit goes a long way). My palette also has larger wells on the right. I put a tiny splash of water in each of the larger wells and use them to mix the colors to be used in the actual washes on my painting.
You’ll need a container to hold water for mixing your paints and cleaning your brushes. (Be sure to use a container that you won't be drinking from - some watercolor paints can contain ingredients that are toxic to ingest).
Paper Towels:
These are useful for dabbing off extra paint from the brush if you’ve picked up more than you intended (and also great for cleaning up)! Any brand will do.
BOOK:
The book I'm referencing in this workout is:
How to Draw Trees (by Frank M. Rines) This brief, wonderfully condensed book discusses key form and compositional aspects of many species of trees from an artistic viewpoint. It also breaks down a great sequence for rendering trees from the initial block-in, through more detailed attention to silhouettes, to planning of shades and shadows, and then steps for finalizing the illustration. It's a great resource for any artist interested in capturing the specific character of various species of trees.
Les Concours Publics d'Architecture:
The base drawing I'm working on top of is from a magnificent 16 volume set titled Les Concours Publics d'Architecture. It's a French publication produced at the turn of the last century that compiled the submission drawings of numerous public professional architectural design competitions. The book set is a treasure trove of original 19th Century and early 20th Century architectural drawings - one of the best collections I've ever seen - and well worth the effort to see in person. I particularly like that it includes not only civic buildings, but also a wide variety of beautifully designed fabric buildings.
HathiTrust's copies of Les Concours Publics d'Architecture are scans from a complete set of the books located at the University of Michigan.
HathiTrust used to permit a full online viewing of pdfs of the books, but now unfortunately seems to allow only limited online viewing of search terms. But - to find a library near you with actual print copies, just click on their "Locate a Print Version: Find in a Library" tab. You can enter your address / zip code and it will give you a list of the nearest libraries with a copy in their collection.
(Incidentally, this is not the same publication as the Les Concours d'Architecture de l'Année Scolaire series, which is also a fantastic resource. Les Concours d'Architecture de l'Année Scolaire is an annual publication compiling architectural drawings produced by students at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris from the turn of the last century).
