Architectural Drawing at the V&A

Towards the end of the holidays, I travelled up to London on my own for the first time in like, forever AND didn't get lost. Major success.

But the fact that I'm now a train & tube pro (okay not quite...) isn't what I'm here to say. The reason I went to London was an architectural drawing workshop at the delightful V&A.

15 of us had managed to book a place at this workshop & every person I met was super friendly, creative & intelligent which was looovely.

The first task of the day was to discuss a selection of the very best architectural drawings. This one below was my favourite; From afar it looks pretty standard, but when you look close, you see that every little piece of this drawing is created using lines & plenty of cross-hatching.

Next up, we went up to the architectural gallery of the museum & sketched three structures. 

The first one we did had to be a line drawing, the second, a tonal drawing & for the third building, we created an atmosphere using colour, weather, people, perspective or anything we could think of. This final task was really fun to go a little wild with.

And then it was time for lunch. As we all got to know one another a little better over lunch & exchanged summer stories, the fountain was filled with children paddling & the place was buzzing with art enthusiasts. Perfect or what?

As the afternoon went on, the tasks became even more creative. Our final task of the day was to come up with our very own concept for a community sports centre. It could be ANYTHING.

I let myself go slightly crazy and decided to create a place where skiing, painting, huge hanging lightbulbs & hidden hills all came together. My jumble of ideas wasn't particularly photogenic so instead here are a couple of my favourite ideas from the others:

The day was absolutely perfect, not only was it exactly what I'm interested in but it was also great to meet the other students & the organisers, who provided us with loads of great advice, as well as encouraging us to approach architecture in new ways.

At the end of the workshop, I had some time to kill, so after a compulsory trip to the cafe & garden, I set off to the nearby houses, snapping away before settling down for a spot of painting.

Yup. That is me sat on the pavement across the road from the house I was painting. And yes, that is a bottle cap I am using as a water pot...

Before long, E met up with me and we wandered towards our train home, passing these pretty places on our way home.

Listening tooooo: Bastille's cover of 'We Can't Stop', Rizzle Kicks' cover of 'Summertime Saddness' & Ellie Goulding's cover of 'Mirrors'

Can you tell I'm loving Radio one's month of live lounges?