Saturday Morning Soaring Spaces STEPHANIE BOWER

Another really exciting event.  I had seen Stephanie Bower’s amazing sketches of the interiors of cathedrals and historic buildings and their ‘soaring spaces’ . This is an area where I am totally out of my depth. I walk into a beautiful old building and look up at the columns, vaulted ceilings and large windows and am in awe of the architecture and builders. I am also overwhelmed at where to even begin sketching this on paper. So I have avoided it.

When the opportunity came up to spend a few hours to gain an understanding of some concepts I signed up immediately !

This Workshop was held at Manchester Town Hall (1868-77) one of the most iconic landmarks in the city. Another stunning Neo-Gothic building on the exterior and soaring vaulted ceilings inside (and the rest of the fabulous detail) . The three and a half hour morning Workshop was broken into two halves. We started sketching in the grand entrance to the Great Hall (where we had the USK opening Reception) .

Part One arches

Part One (the first hour) was all about learning the anatomy of the arch and the important ‘spring’ line where columns and the arch begins. This included lots of  looking and measuring.   I put lot of dots and lines all over the paper before even putting any lines down. (I was using either a 2B or HB pencil in my Moleskine 13 x 19 cm watercolour sketchbook) I was immensely pleased and proud of my arch on the page.

Part Two vaulted ceilings

Unfortunately we were moved from the entrance to the Great Hall as the guests for a wedding reception were arriving. We voted to continuing drawing inside and went downstairs to sketch vaulted archways instead of vaulted ceilings. There was still a lot to learn and I discovered that I could add a little lean to the columns to give the impression of the space. At times this seemed like an M.C.Escher drawing, as I tried to remember which line went with which column.

I finished the morning with my head full of lots of new techniques and concepts to use in the future. However I could have spent another few hours to learn about the soaring spaces and looking up. I still had another two weeks of holidays in England (York and London) and many beautiful buildings to visit and sketch. I attempted quite a few vaulted archways , but only one soaring space. York Minster (below)

MY TAKEAWAYS

• comparative measuring at the beginning sets the sketch up on the page
• arches are not shaped like horse shoes
• block the page into simple shapes
• archways – differentiate them by making areas light and dark