From Macro to Micro – a Visual Story of a Building

Friday Morning with Nina Johansson

Confession .  I would have signed up for any Symposium event that went to the beautiful and historic  John Rylands Library. I am a librarian, I work in a historic (for Australia) 1886 Court Library and have an interest in old books. When the workshop list was released I was so excited to see that Nina Johannson’s  Workshop, From Macro to Micro – a Visual Story of a Building was going to be held there. It was just the sort of workshop I wanted to attend – one that assists me to build a narrative on my sketching pages. My daily sketchbook is a visual journal of my life and I want to build on that.  Also, I had met Nina at the 2013 Barcelona Urban Sketching Symposium and enjoy her sketching style.

Part One – Macro

First – Nina discussed the importance of composition and planning the pages. We had to think about how we would place images on the page and how much space they would take up, and draw squares and circles on the pages. We were sketching the outside of The John Rylands Library from across the road. Thankfully there was a bus stop we could sit under while it drizzled. The John Rylands Library is a very complex and detailed Neo Gothic building. Knowing how I was going to position it across a two page spread helped me reign in its size, which in turn stopped me getting caught up in detail. We had about an hour for the exterior.

Part Two – Micro

As the rain got heavier, we moved inside and looked the interior architectural details- arches, gargoyles, carvings… Because my page had been planned and I had penciled in squares on the pages, I could ‘fit’  the features onto the page . They were balanced vertically and horizontally.

We gathered together at the end to discuss our sketches and  talked about composition, colour and line problems and how we overcame them.

The library, opened to the public in 1900, was founded by Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her husband, John Rylands. Today it is part of The University of Manchester Library. was designed to resemble a church in a decorated neo-Gothic style with Arts and Crafts details, The special collections, are amongst the largest in the United Kingdom include medieval I illuminated manuscripts and examples of early European printing, including a Gutenberg Bible, the second largest collection of printing by William Caxton and the most extensive collection of the editions of the Aldine Press of Venice.

MY TAKEAWAYS

• thinking about and planning can create a balanced and visually pleasing page
• planning assists to fit everything on the page
• use colour to put focus on important parts of the page

I visited and sketched in this wonderful building three times during my week in Manchester and would have returned again if I had time!