How did you use a limited colour palette to create a sense of depth?
Overall, I think I did not create much sense of depth with my use of colour. Maybe a bit in that the central building has the most intense colouring, while the buildings behind appear more faded. I used the same brown tone, but less intense. The sense of depth in my drawing is mostly a result of perspective angles in the receding parallels, less the result of use of colour.
Did your preliminary sketches give you enough information for your final piece of work?
They helped me in determining what I wanted to include and how to frame my central building. They also helped in approaching the difficulties of the faceted wall structures. The preliminary sketches would probably not have conveyed enough information for a final study from memory alone, I’d have been obliged to invent or leave out aspects like tonal shades or building details.
Would you approach this task differently another time?
I think I would select a different building next time, one with less stories, and would try to be closer. I’d then try to compose a drawing with better distinction between foreground, middle ground and background. Otherwise I think the approach of making small studies of details and tonality, plus drawing sketches to try variations in the composition, worked well for me. Due to the extremely hot and humid weather conditions I preferred to work on a view out of the window, rather than getting outside. This limited my options for the exercise.
Have you got the scale of the buildings right? Make notes on what worked and what didn’t.
Yes, I think I got the scales of the buildings correctly. What worked well were the angular perspective lines. And I like how the tiny marks for the windows seem to work. What worked less well was my use of colour for the lighter versus darker sides of the building. The sun-facing sides (light coming from the right side) should have been lighter and my coloured pencil strokes on the lower receding side of the main building seem to distort the scale a bit.
Have you captured the colour and atmosphere in your studies? How did you do this?
I think the red-brown colour for the central building was well chosen and also the decision of using a light blue tone worked well for the sky and the two buildings in the background. I don’t know whether I captured the atmosphere in my drawing. I’m not sure whether I even realized some kind of atmosphere in the scene. In a technical sense, there are errors in the colouring because the sun-lit sides of the buildings should have been lighter, and overall colour intensity was stronger in the scene.