05/26/2023
This is Vida Health Village - formerly Alta - in north Orlando, designed by Charlan Brock Architects (the architecture firm where I work). It was a great excuse to get comfortable with another new fountain pen I just bought, plus it’s a good exercise to draw in more grounded three-dimensionality. Most of what I draw tends to be stylized and flattened, but I really do admire the ability to sketch architecturally, so this is kind of a foray into that.
As a bonus peek behind the creative process curtain (if you’re into that kind of thing), this is actually the third version of this drawing. The proportions were all wrong in the first one, and the perspective got too skewed in the second. So this particular Goldilocks drawing took about 6 hours from beginning to end, and that was aided by using a lightbox to transfer the general shapes over from the second attempt. I say this to illustrate (ha) two things: That the process isn’t always just a linear Point A to Point B, and that it takes time to do this sort of thing.
You see tons of videos of people drawing and painting sped up super fast to under a minute – I’ve done plenty myself, and they’re fun to watch! But I think they also give a false impression of speediness, and can make artists feel like they’re doing something wrong if they aren’t that fast. Things take hours, days, weeks, and so on, and I think it’s healthy to have a reminder of that.
