Project 7: Townscape with Buildings and Figures

Different areas in Manchester City Centre.

Manchester Exchange Square was totally rebuilt in 1996 after the RIA bomb attacks; pubs were dismantled and re assembled in different positions. Around the Exchange Square you will find The Shambless pub, a new entrance to the Arndale Centre, Urbis, The Print Works, The Manchester Wheel, The Triangle Shopping Centre and the large outdoor TV screen. Market Street is a pedestrian zone bustling with shoppers which includes the Food Court, Arndale Centre and loads of shops on one main stretch which runs from Piccadilly Gardens to St. Ann’s Square. Piccadilly Gardens was transformed in 2002 it’s no longer a green open space area filled with homeless drunks drinking cider. If it wasn’t for the buildings surrounding the area unfortunately you would not be able to recognize it compared against Lowry’s Piccadilly Gardens (1954).

If you didn’t know Manchester or even if you do you couldn’t name all the squares and little areas with their own name in the city centre they all just roll into one its hard the distinguish where one starts and the other one begins. Other squares around Manchester are Albert Square, St Peter's Square, St Ann's Square, Motor Street Square, Catalan Square, Stephenson Square, Cathedral Gardens, Parsonage Gardens, Shambles Square, Crown Square and Great Northern Square even I don’t know a few of these.

DON'T FORGET TO CLICK THE IMAGES AGAIN ONCE THEY HAVE LOADED FOR A LARGER IMAGE...

Barton Arcades, St Anns Square.

This study is the entrance of Barton Arcades looking from St Anne’s Square in the city centre of Manchester. Barton Arcade is a Victoria building which has 3 tiers with a glass roof, the building is a grade II listed historic building. I have worked from photograph number which I took whilst in Manchester. I think the reason I did it was the one point perspective, I have used Conte Crayons I purchased a small box of four a while ago for a couple of quid as I wanted to see the difference between these and soft pastels but never got round to using them. All four colours have been used in this study, Black, White, Bistre and Sanguine on cartridge paper.

I like the feel of them how you can blend them like pastels but they are a lot harder. They also tend to stay on the paper better when you use fixative, when I use pastels with fixative the white and all the light colours tend to disappear and you have to re add them without fixative at the end. I didn’t draw an under drawing I just went for it and it took an hour or so to complete. Over all I like the Conte Crayons and will be investing into a 48 set rather than using pastels, the study isn’t brilliant but I can recognize where the study was from.

Looking towards the top of Exchange Square. A study of the Manchester Exchange area is another study I used the Conte Crayons with but as my palette was very limited I had to add a couple of greens and a blue soft pastel into the creation. This time I have used some pastel paper which has more tooth then the cartridge paper of the previous study, the paper is also a bluey grey colour which I left for blank for the colour of the sky.

I thought it would benefit added a light source as there wasn’t much of one on the photograph. The tree I enjoyed doing it really stands out amongst the browns of the buildings. In the picture you see both new additions with the old buildings to the Manchester skyline. I have immensely enjoyed using Conte Crayons and like I said before will be buying more than just the four colours I have, but overall I don’t think I’ve done too badly for limited palette.

 Printworks, Exchange Square. This is the finished drawing, a few things need to be looked at again and the placement of the people I’m not too happy with. The rest of it I can sort out when I use pastel or whatever medium I end up doing it in. I might just leave it as it is if I don’t get much further with it today, I really need to get on with the finished image and I don’t think this is going to be one I will be using. At the end of the day I can come back to this image and work with it another time if I feel the need to do so, but I must fix the charcoal before it all smudges.