Union Station Drawing
Intro
For my Foundation Drawing 1 class at George Brown College, we were taught to understand how lighting acts in an environment. To show that we understand this, we had to do a drawing of Union Station. But not the whole station, just a small portion of it. To show the lighting, we had to use colored pencils on Canson paper. Plus, it had to a perspective drawing as well. Drawing is not my best skill I have, but I was going to do my best.
Materials
So, the materials that I needed were:
HB pencils
Colored pencils
Canson paper
Bond paper
Pressboard
Ruler
Creative Process
In drawing class, we did a few exercises on perspective drawing and recreating lighting with colored pencils. For the lighting, I was looking for more artificial lighting than natural because I wanted the lighting and the surrounding area to reflecting off the floor. I wanted to try and recreate that. When it came to perspective drawing, I was only good at doing one point perspective drawing. So I decided that I would look for something that I could do a one point perspective drawing on.
When I first went to union station, I wanted to do the basement but I walked around to see what else was there that I could do. I came across an area with pillars and thought that I would do this.
First place I saw
I started to examine it in detail and decided not to it but maybe I could to the area across from where I was sitting. I went there and examine that area but chose not to do it.
Did not really liked this
So I went back to the basement and walked around until I found something that I wanted to do. Then I came across an area of the basement that I liked and decided to do that.
This is it
One of the first things I needed to do is a 4 hour observation drawing of the area on bond paper. This was a rough drawing but it needed the correct perspective for the next step. I tried to get as much detail as possible of the area.
4 hour drawing
When that was done, I now needed to an 11 x 14 inches perspective drawing on bond paper for the professor to approve. When it is approved I could move on to the final drawing. Now, I could have zoomed in and done a small part of the first drawing I did or the whole thing. I decided that I would crop out part of the right side and a bit of the top and bottom and draw that because I felt it was not needed and I wanted to focus more on the far back of the area.
11 x 14 Perspective Drawing
Production
After it was approved, I needed to study the light in the area and what color Canson paper I was going to use. I figured that since the area was a bit dark with grey and brown, I might use those colors. I came across steel grey and felt grey Canson papers and decided that one of those two colors would be used for the final piece. I photocopied the approved drawing onto the two Canson papers.
Canson Paper
I was going to use the photo I had as a reference for the lighting but I also went there to study it and try to get the right colors for the area. I was going to finalize the colors I am going to use when I did the final. After I studied the light, I decide that steel grey would be the best to use for the final.
Steel Grey
Felt Grey
The final piece was an 11 x 14 inches Canson paper on a 15 x 20 inches pressboard. The first I thing I did was redrew the approved drawing onto the Canson paper. Then I cut a small piece of the Canson paper and using the photo and light study, I started mixing and matching colored pencils to get the exact, almost exact, or changed the original color to see how it would look. After I found the right color, I started applying it until I was done.
Coloured Pencils
Color Testing
Starting to add color and mxing them
Final Image
Final 11 x 14 on the 15 x 20 pressboard
Conclusion
Overall, I liked how it turned out. After it was completed, I learned how lighting works in real life and how to draw it. It is quite hard to get all the lighting because it affects each color differently and getting the right amount of each color was hard to do. A good an example of this is the floor because you had the floor color, the light, and the wall reflecting off of it. I had to shade in and go light with the colors I used to get the right colors. It was hard sometimes not to color in the drawing by press hard. If I were to do it again, I would probably fix the light fixtures on the ceiling because it did not turned out how I wanted it to be. I needed to add more orange to it. An advice that I would give is go light or shade with the colors, don’t press hard with it.
