Shadowing Practice: making architecture art - Learn English Speaking with Video

I want to make another mini-series, but this time about architecture.

And why not make it something that feels closer to home?

The plan is to make nine mini-artworks, size A5.

Together they make one big panel house.

By panel house I mean these old-school, social, modernism type of houses.

And separately each little art piece should stand alone on its own.

Similar to my last project, but this time the paper is a little bigger.

That's the idea, so let's get to work.

Well, before we actually get to drawing on the A5s, I need to actually figure out how I want to execute this.

Do I want the windows to be tiny and focus more on the colors of the building, or do I want them to be big so you can see inside them?

So I made many sketches in order to figure out what do I actually want to achieve.

Plus, testing out what kind of colors do I want to use and what kind of medium do I want to use.

So I was thinking whether or not I should paint it instead of color it with water markers,

because I wanted to add more texture to the end result.

And with paint you can add a lot of texture, but it's kind of annoying.

I want to be more precise and I think doing something like this could be more what I'm looking for.

Coloring it with markers and then adding some pencil.

So I So I think we found it, I hope.

Maybe I'll change my mind in two days.

Now that I have an idea of how I want it to look like, time to plan things out.

Since I want this building to be connected to each other, I have to plan things out.

How many windows will be where, what's the height of the walls, what's the height of the windows, where does the building connect, stuff like that.

Now I have some other idea of what I want it to look like, which is something along the lines of this.

It's time to plan out how I want it to look like, right?

Does that make sense?

So I outlined the little papers that I was planning to use, sketched out like this, but then I thought it was way too big.

And I did it again.

And then I landed on making them smaller.

Not too small, I think.

But since I want it to be a connected art piece, I needed to plan out exactly what I want each paper to have.

And I knew that I wanted one of the papers to have an entrance, or maybe two of them because i do love entrances in these buildings

but yeah what do i do after

that how many balconies do i want how many windows do i want

and how wide are the windows because this paper is what um where is it it is it doesn't say

It is 10.5 by 15 centimeters.

So how do I put this into there?

So I kind of planned it here somewhat, planned it all out.

Then I did it again with a more cohesive spread.

So here we have the entrance, then we have some balconies.

And then we have the four balconies, but it's divided into two papers, so it doesn't seem overwhelming.

So I think this looks great.

So I started making them, like outlining them with a pencil.

I did four of them, and I think they look quite cute.

If you can see, it's a very light pencil.

But then I had the intuition to test something, which is the markers themselves, because I was afraid that they're going to bleed, and I was right.

This is a permanent marker, which I won't use, but you can see here the blue and the black water-based markers do come through.

So I don't think this is a reliable paper to make art on, to sketch sure, but not to make something that I am making right now.

From my previous works as well, this was made with ink, and you can kind of see see it through it.

So I have to do something about that.

There's a couple of options.

I could get new papers, which I don't really feel like doing, and I would still need to test them.

Or I could go back to this little notebook that I used for my first art piece or art project,

because I know what to expect from it and it is a little bit heavier than the other one

And the A5 it's 170 grams, this is 185 grams, even though the difference Doesn't seem like a lot.

It's enough to make a difference.

Does that make sense?

So I think I'm gonna switch to making these again.

So before the plan was nine A5s and now we're switching to 12 9x9s centimeters that is.

Kind of what I did last time but this time it's higher rather than wider.

It's the same principle though, everything together needs to make one big building.

Two days ago I finished the first step which is sketching the outlines and I think they look quite nice.

So now it's time to make little outlines

because I have all the pencil outlines and now it's time to outline it with a pen.

I have an example of how I want it to look like, a little test and it's always good to make tests.

Look at how many I have.

This is exciting.

I'm excited to start.

I think I'll start with number one.

Now it's time to make my dreams into reality.

Putting my pen on this paper makes it feel more permanent.

I guess because it is.

It took me around two days to draw everything with a pencil

and it took me the whole day to outline my pencil sketches with the pen for all of the mini artworks.

Honestly didn't expect it to take so long.

Even though I first outlined every single one of these squares and then I put color on it,

I want to introduce each little fragment to you because each of them have a little theme.

So I'm gonna go one by one showing you what the themes are.

This one is the first one of the bunch.

It's located on the top left corner and I called it spooked.

Anything abandoned or spooky went here.

So we have a little ghost, a witch's pot, cracked walls, two cats, hockey sticks.

Okay, some of the things weren't that scary, but I didn't want to make it super scary.

Just a little spooked.

And here we have the first one.

Oops, I think it looks cute, right?

Just like most of these panel house buildings that I'm referencing from,

I am making my little building mainly grey but with a pop of blue for the balconies.

And the inside of the windows are gonna be pink and dark pink.

Our second fragment of the day, which is right below number two, is called the creative travel.

So I imagined people that are creative and like to travel live here.

So they either play some kind of musical instrument

or express their creativity otherwise or they like traveling to different countries or different ships.

I wanted there to be a bit of a balance between windows

that are cluttered with stuff and windows that just have curtains, because honestly most of the people that live in these buildings will have their windows covered,

or you'll see just some random storage in the balconies.

Unlike in countries like the Netherlands, where you can see exactly what show are they watching.

Number three is cute storage.

Basically anything that is cute goes here and also some storage.

As I just mentioned before, storage is a big part of balconies.

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We don't really use them to relax

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because most of the year it's kind of depressing and there's also nothing really to look outside at.

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So we put our stuff there like a bike, broken tv, random boxes, laundry if it's summertime

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and a lot of people also make them into mini botanical gardens

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but that's also usually in summertime the balconies are not that well isolated number four.

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This is the bottom left corner, so this is the bottom of the building.

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Most buildings, most older apartments that are located at the bottom of a building have fences?

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I don't know how to call them.

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My dad told me that in the Soviet times, oftentimes, the first floor apartments were

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robbed so therefore they have fences on them

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and a lot of the fences have really nice

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and intricate designs on them which is kind of cool

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and most of them don't match it's a unique design well i don't know how unique it is

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but each apartment and or even each window has a different design usually

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but this fragment of the art piece is called old school

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so it has a lot of or a few old school stuff like an old TV, a satellite dish, a skeleton and some pickles.

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Number 5 We're going back to the top of the building, this time the middle section of the building.

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Calm and cozy is the name.

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Simple but effective.

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Anything calm or cozy goes here.

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We have some painting stuff, some cozy nooks, plants, cats, books, cute curtains, stuffed animals and so on.

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What's also special about this middle section of the building is that there's a staircase hallway thing in the middle.

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You know, for you to get into your apartment you need to get up the stairs.

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And since at the bottom floor there's gonna be an entrance, the rest of the middle section has to be the staircase thing.

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That's how it usually is.

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So if you're wondering why are there small windows, that's the reason.

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Right below number 5 we have number 6, which is hobby.

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So anything that could be a hobby, playing the guitar, fishing, coffee, lamps, birds, dogs, is in this section.

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Maybe you have noticed that many of these sections have animals in them.

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More specifically, maybe cats.

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More cats than dogs.

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Or if it is a dog, it's a little dog.

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I mean, that's how it usually is, I think, in these apartments.

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There will always be a cat looking out somewhere in the distance.

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Or maybe it's chilling around the neighborhood if it's an outdoor cat.

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There's always some cats roaming around the streets.

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Some of them have owners and some of them might not.

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So that's why I want to include some animal in most of these.

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I think all of them should have some animal.

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At number seven we have sports.

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Anything related to sports.

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Skiing, rowing, tennis, trophies, gym equipment, dogs

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and we also have some birds on the ledges of the

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building these birds are undoubtedly seagulls for some reason we have

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so many seagulls here and they're so chunky like they're

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so big they're bigger than some chickens out there i was

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actually recently attacked by a seagull i don't know why it

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had beef with me i just walked by it it was screaming

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and then it started flying over me that was fun

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but to be honest most of the times they're quite chill i don't know what was up with that one But yes, a few of these pieces will have seagulls on them.

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Seagulls?

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More like apartment gulls.

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Am I right?

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Number 8 on the board, we have Entrance.

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This is the entrance of the building, so I decided to name it Entrance and have things that are related to an entrance in it,

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like signs, statues, mosaics, champagne, hedges, cats, as they greet you.

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And of course, since it is the bottom of the building, we again have our fences on windows and balconies to protect from the thieves.

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And to add something more, you know what I mean?

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Since this is the bottom of the building, the only way from here is up.

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So this one is the top right corner of the building.

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I think this is one of my favourite ones, if I'm allowed to be biased, because this one is a party.

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Or should I say party because it's with an exclamation mark at the end.

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But anything related to a party is here.

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A disco ball, drinks, karaoke machine, two cats, we have it all.

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I think growing up in an apartment building is not that bad, mainly because you get used to the sounds of your neighbors.

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I don't remember any neighbor having like a crazy party

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but even though the walls are pretty thick you can still hear things

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but I'm really not that bothered by them and usually I'm pretty good at ignoring that.

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At number 10 we have the beach.

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I actually do not like the beach.

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I don't know why but I do like the aesthetic of the beach.

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The beach balls, the jet skis, the little drinks, sand castles, seagulls, well actually seagulls are not that fun on the beach.

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Ice cream, I actually don't really like ice cream.

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Boats.

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Boats kind of freak me out, I guess.

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Hmm, this is starting to make sense.

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But hey, I do enjoy drawing them.

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And I do like that one Nicki Minaj song about the beach.

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But what else can you find on the beach but plants and animals, which is the next theme of the next fragment.

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We have, of course, some birds, some spiders, some plants, a little dog, a cat tower, and a snake.

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Overall, I wanted to keep it realistic.

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I could have added, like, a giraffe or an elephant but they are too high maintenance to keep them in your apartment.

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Last but not least, we have outdoor.

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Stuff that might be meant to be outdoor is indoor.

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Or I guess things that you could do outdoor or bring them with you, you know.

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We have a barbecue grill, a bike, archery stuff, bird houses, and we have an outdoor cat.

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And you can see it's an outdoor cat because it has little stairs.

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And again, this is the bottom of the building, so we yet again, yet again and again and again, have fences on windows.

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No offense, but we have a fence on our windows, because we don't trust you.

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That's probably what they said back in the day.

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I have completed the coloring with markers.

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All of my little.. little.. arts.

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Look how many are there.

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I don't feel too confident about how it turned out,

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But I think what could help and what I plan to do also is adding some pencils, adding some details with pencils.

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I'm not too too sure what to do with the ledges because I don't want them to be white.

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I want the windows to be white for sure.

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The ledges I thought to make them grey as well, but I think then they will disappear.

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So maybe I can do something with the pencils.

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Yeah, now I'm gonna just detail the all of the detail time,

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the most fun time when you have everything almost completed but you just add some finishing touches.

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In my case, it's with some pencil,

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more pen to add like marks and scuffs because usually these buildings are a bit under maintained or I don't know.

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I think they're decently maintained but they do have some cracks and crannies, nooks and crannies.

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And then also adding my, of course, silver pen.

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I don't know why I like it so much, the silver I mean, but it really adds something to it.

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I like that it reflects light so nicely.

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Of course after this I varnished these pieces because I am selling them on my coffee page for 15 euros plus shipping,

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so if you want to get one go grab one, would be really cool if you do, and if you don't that's also totally fine.

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Of course limited quantity only these 12 pieces but I'll stop yapping

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and I'll show you this is the before and this is the final result.

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I'm happy with the result and how they turned out in the end.

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I like that each little piece has its own story

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and character and I feel like it captured the energy of these panel houses pretty well.

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