Steps in Robin Hoods Bay - Work in Progress

Some of you may remember the ink drawing of some steps in Robin Hoods Bay that I did a couple of years ago. Well I've decided to do another.

The reference photo is one of the many photo's I have of this beautiful place. The scene isn't as pleasing to the eye as the first one but I find the cobbled steps receding into that alley quite captivating.

Just as I did the last time, I'm hoping to achieve a sort of vignette effect. It wasn't as successful as I'd hoped last time so I'll see how I get on with this one.

To start with I converted the reference photo to black & white, to help get the tonal values right. I pencilled out some outlines of the key structures which I then lightly inked over. I like to think of these lines as the 'bones' of the picture..... they form the skeleton on which I can now hang the meat.

Once again, I’m using Extra Smooth Surface Bristol Board (A4) and Pigma Micron Fineliner pens.

I've made a start on filling in the detail. Unlike last time I have decided to do this one from top to bottom, although I may still leave the steps till last. I'll see how it goes. ;)

I've now finished the stone building. Progress is very slow with such detailed texturing and I'm not that thrilled with the overall effect, but that's normal for me at this stage of a drawing.

One thing I am concerned about is the perspective of the two windows on the white building. I hadn't noticed previously but the tops and bottoms of them slope down too much. The same applies to the entrance to the alley. It might be that the problem becomes less obvious as more of the picture is completed but at the moment they are a glaring issue.

I made a few small tweaks to the tops and bottoms of the windows and the alleyway and have improved the perspective. It's not perfect but a big improvement on how it was.

The left side of the drawing is now complete with the addition of the foliage. I'm unsure whether to darken it a bit more but since I can't lighten it later I'll leave it as is until the whole picture is finished.

One other thing that's troubling me is the "Oval" shape I'm trying to create. I wanted a vignette effect with no square sides but the oval might be going too far as it's cutting off most of the leftmost building. This is something else I may need to change once everything else is done.

I've now completed the right side of the drawing. I've varied my hatching marks by way of direction and density and also by different thicknesses of pen. As much as possible I've tried to create the same degree of darkness for each brick as shown in the reference photo. The area around the big black door ought to be a bit darker but I suspect it would take over the whole scene if I went darker than I have it now.

I'm thinking I may call this finished but I'm still unsure about the oval shape. I'll put it aside for a few days and then see how I feel about it.

I decided I wasn't happy with the oval shape so I attempted to create more of a proper vignette by fading the edges. I'm not overly pleased with the effect but I'm calling this done and moving on.

The vignette effect is something I've been wanting to try for quite a while and I'm very pleased that I've finally scratched the itch, so to speak.