Month: February 2023

For my final piece I wanted to focus on the juxtaposition between Bradford’s historical architecture, such as the mills and cathedral, and the newer purpose made architecture.
To do this I crammed lots of different buildings on top of each other, while also
exaggerating the size of some. I altered the size of some due to my belief that the modern design of large cities aspires to make you feel small. With the ever increasing size of buildings, the beauty is lost, and all that is left is for you to look up and see how much they tower over you.
I wanted to include a lot of tall mill chimneys, as I think they stand out a lot amongst the other buildings when you look over Bradford. I also felt it was important to include them as they were a major part in the development of the city as a whole. The number of chimneys also somewhat links to how polluted the city air is.
I stacked a lot of the flats atop each other, as they are plentiful, and identical, throughout the city.

I decided to go for a more messy and illustrative approach in this piece, which I think has some pros and cons. I do like how everything is able to connect through overlapping, but I do think there are some weaker areas that needed more buildings, however the messy style would’ve made it hard to add more while keeping them illegible. I did like playing around with the line weight, and I think it adds to the characteristics of certain buildings- such as the flats having darker, heavy lines, opposed to the cathedral having lighter, more detailed ones.

I decided that I wanted to use pastels instead of charcoal, as I have never used them, and I wanted to experiment a little with colour.

I did enjoy using them, however I didn’t like the texture, and I found them to be really messy. I did like how vibrant the colours came out in the smaller sketches. If I were to use them again, I think I’d go for a more vibrant colour scheme, as it seems that’s what they work best for.

I decided to create a digital sketch of Bradford Grand Mosque, as I think one of the most unique aspects of Bradford is the multiculturalism.
Compared to other cities, Bradford is extremely diverse, and because of this we have been able to see many different practises from a range of cultures.

Islam is very present within Bradford, and this has created diversity within the architecture as there have been a number of Mosques constructed.

Whilst I am not the biggest fan of digital art, I enjoyed sketching digitally as it removes any concerns I have about making mistakes. This is possibly something I would like to improve on in the future.

I tried a different method of printing, by laying a sheet of paper atop a paint covered sheet, and drawing on the back of it. This didn’t really work well, as the images are hard to see. I did do more, but some of the pages were stuck together by the time it came to peel. If I do this again in the future I would probably try to use some different paper, or paint, as I’m not sure which was the issue.
The images were meant to portray factories, but I think its rather hard to see due to the lack of detail, and messy appearance.

I don’t usually draw in a quick/messy, or at least not in this style. I like to include details, which I think is rather hard to do with this sort of drawing.
I did enjoy the more carefree aspect of it, and I think this style could be useful for planning larger pieces, or perhaps it would look better on a larger scale.

I decided to warp the prints using the scanner as I thought it could create some interesting results. I also think this could reference how buildings, and building styles, are ever changing.
I quite liked how these turned out, and I think they could be used well perhaps as backgrounds within other pieces.