Visual Language: Week Two - Visual Experiment - Response to London Skyline

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5th Oct -

Visual Experiment - Response to London Skyline


Inspired by Moriguchi Yuji’s ‘~Denouement~’  from the WAVE exhibition at Japan House, I decided to photograph the London skyline from a window to study the shapes and textures of the urban world. Once the photo was taken, I created some sketches depicting the skyline in a more simplified style, to help me understand the forms and values of the buildings. The first sketch was a line art pencil sketch to specifically concentrate on the unique shapes of each structure, and the second was line art ink pen sketch, which I then used pencils varying in hardness to create more depth and separation between the buildings.


photo taken of skyline
During this process, I found certain aspects of the building easier to capture than others. The general shapes of the buildings were fairly simple to sketch out, however the proportions of each building and the way in which they harmonised with one another to create one scene was a lot harder to visualise. This is depicted in the differences between the two illustrations - the first being quite proportionally opposed from the second despite being based on the same reference. At first I saw this as a negative, however upon reflection this could instead be seen as a visual contrast between the two styles I attempted. The first using only pencil was a lot more rigid and one dimensional, conveying a sense of calm and stillness. The second was a lot more loose, with varied line weight in the inks, and gradation between the values of each building in the pencil shading. This added a greater sense of texture, and a clear contrast between the buildings. I feel that this provokes a sense of unease and alludes to a more dilapidated and worn down environment.


Illustrations based on skyline
Overall I feel the experiment was fairly successful, however there are aspects I would like to work on more in the future. I feel that I could greater understand the forms and proportions of the buildings, as well as the way they interact with each other rhythmically and define the negative space of the scene, by experimenting with perspective lines. This would help me to not only be able to more accurately depict the perspective, but also allow me to develop this sense of perspective further and exaggerate certain aspects of the buildings’ shapes and proportions to provoke different emotions in the audience (forced perspective can be used to create a multitude of atmospheres). I feel that by depicting an urban environment, It has made me think about the unethical reality of skylines such as this - the image propels the viewer (in this case, me) to visualise the environmental impacts that urban society has on the world: The amount of people that these buildings are made to hold must each individually carry an extremely high carbon footprint.

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