Industrial Patterns

I've been fascinated by heavy industry since my childhood, when my family traveling in Europe would often encounter gasworks or mills on the outskirts of modern cities in ancient places. I recall the awesome sights of steel mills in Youngstown, Ohio and oil refineries in northern New Jersey. The drawings in this post are of a coal mine head (above) and some forms from a steel mill (below). I have a large collection of images of these industrial sites and I also have a good number of the photography books of Bernd and Hilla Becher, a German husband-and-wife team who specialized in photographing and documenting heavy industry. These pen doodles were adapted from Becher photographs in their book "Industrial Landscapes."

Brown technical pen ink on sketchbook page. Top image, 3 3/4" x 3". Bottom image, 4" x 2 1/4". January 26, 2015.