Week 4 - Urban Exploration: Victorian Architecture (Site Visit)

Preparatory Sketches:

We had the great opportunity to visit the Abbey Pumping Station Museum in Leicester this week, which we could then later use to create a Victorian environment inspired by what we saw in the museum. The resources on blackboard we were given before the session discussed Assassin's Creed Syndicate as an inspiration which is really exciting for me as it is one of my favourite games ever, especially in terms of environment art and atmosphere. I knew that the colour and value palette of the period was a lot of red, brown and ochre in a dull, dark environment, and in the Pumping Station there was plenty of objects and environments which supported this initial idea in my head.

The area I focussed on in the station was the Beam Engine room - as it was this wonderful room full of massive engines with exaggerated mechanical parts that would be very interesting to draw. A key call back to Victorian times in particular is machines of the industrial revolution, so I focussed my efforts on creating sketches to explore this. I also took photographs during my stay which can be seen below, and when we produce our final piece next week these would be fantastic for colour palette inspiration and even composition help.

I began my sketches with drawing the large engine wheels in the top right, and after talking with Teo she recommended I go around the room and draw more structural elements, compositions and lighting scenarios instead of observational studies. I loved the beams structure for both the ceiling and the areas around the stairs, and the pillars had some lovely forms and patterns on them that I hoped to also include. I started these quite late into the trip at the Pumping Station, so I used it to focus on a lot of the forms and shapes I would love to focus on in the later piece.

Before next week, I will take some references from my own photography and use some edits to create a more interesting atmosphere, most likely to mimic the bottom sketch I did very quickly at the end of the trip as I think this selection of elements with the steam drums and the stairs makes a really lovely scene.