Sunday, February 21, 2010

Fairfax Vernacular



Fairfax County, like much of Virginia, has a number of older commercial and residential structures, built in what would be considered a "vernacular" style. They are disappearing one by one, as developers buy the land and put something more profitable on it. The current Economic Downturn has slowed this process down, so that buildings like this are still standing on expensive Fairfax County sites. This is a tailor's place of operation. I like the squat pyramidal roof, and especially the angled cut into the porch on the right side. In this drawing you can see the mountain ranges of dirty piled-up snow which block views on the roads and make driving inconvenient. I drew this through a window at a Starbucks. It's still far too cold outside for outdoor sketching.

If this were a real and proper "Urban Sketcher" blog all you would see would be stuff like this. I guess after almost two years it has turned out that "Art By-Products" is not an Urban Sketcher blog, nor completely by-product-ish, but just a PyraArt blog of any variety or era. I hope you don't mind.

"Fairfax Vernacular Business Building" is ink on sketchbook paper, about 10" x 6", colored in Photoshop.

2 comments:

Tristan Alexander said...

I think if this were simply an Urban sketcher or whatever you call it blog, I would not like it as much! While I am amazed at how you can sketch the most common of things and make them look great and interesting, I enjoy seeing all the types of art you do! You have surprised me with some of it and that is always good!

rhh said...

Tristan said: [...I am amazed at how you can sketch the most common of things and make them look great and interesting,]

Well said.

Ralph