Tag Archives: cathedral

cathedral steps

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Last year I illustrated the cover of the program for the 2011 Christmas Concert at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco’s Nob Hill. This year I had the honour to be asked once again, for the 2012 shows. This time I was asked to provide an illustration of the magnificent building from a different angle, that of the impressive choir on the western side. Last weekend, my wife and I went to see the Christmas Concert, a beautiful show, and I will show you the panoramic sketch I made in the next post. For now though I thought you might like to see a step-by-step of how I drew the cathedral, along with some detailed and highly useful lecture notes. Cathedrals are fantastic to draw. If I could spend my life just drawing cathedrals I would be one happy little (well, medium-sized) Scully.

grace cathedral steps 1-4
Step One: draw some of the cathedral.
grace cathedral steps 5-8
Step two: draw the rest of the cathedral
Grace Cathedral
Here it is before adding the colour. It’s a good idea to scan it before you add the colour, because you might want to use it for a colouring-in-book, and you may get the colour completely wrong and accidentally paint it green or something.
Grace Cathedral (part colour)
Step Three: add some colour. Colour a little bit at a time. Then colour some other bits. Always paint the sky last, for no reason whatsoever. Scan it halfway through so you can say, I like it like that.
Grace Cathedral at Christmas
And…voilà! You have your cathedral. I am very pleased with it, and I think they were too. I was asked to make it evening time so you can see some of the colourful stained glass. I gave the evening sky a purple tint, to reflect the colours worn by the both the priests and the Men and Boys Choir. I must say, they are a really nice bunch of people at Grace, it’s one of my favourite spots in the city. Please visit them at http://www.gracecathedral.org/. In the next post, I’ll show you what I sketched there at the weekend…

like a tower shining bright

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blessed sacrament cathedral, sacramentoYesterday afternoon I took the bus over to Sacramento. I’ve not been there in a good long while, and I wanted to sketch stuff we don’t have in Davis, in this case a big tall cathedral. The Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, just off K St, was completed in 1889 and sits about a block or so from the State Capitol. It’s a Roman Catholic church, and on this day there was a big wedding while I sketched. The horse and carriage that wait at the bottom of the steps in this drawing were soon joined by the large wedding party and what sounded like a mariachi band playing Mexican music. I think there were other weddings that day because there seemed to be a decent contingent of brides and bridesmaids dotted about Sacramento; good weekend to get married I suppose. The weather, which was hitting the century last week, was in the mid seventies, much more reasonable for October. It’s always interesting to sketch on K Street, Sacramento. Interesting if you like people shuffling up and asking for a dollar, or like people cycling up and down the sidewalk on those scruffy little bikes people seem to have (not that I judge the scruffiness of a bike, my own being pretty scrufftastic, but at least it’s the right size for an adult). Yesterday was a little less so, as there was also quite a lot of police, many on horseback, likely keeping an eye out for the demonstration that was gathered before the Capitol (no idea what it was about, but it’s all politics these days). I sketched this for about an hour and a half and then had to say enough was enough. I was using an Itoya finepoint, only its second outing, but already the nib was wasting away before me. Those Itoyas have nice enough ink but buckle at the first sight of paper, especially watercolour Moleskine paper. It was only a buck.

After strolling down K and through the rather sad downtown mall (no longer a Westfield), I passed into Old Sacramento, where many people were gathering for some music festival by the river that evening. I was peckish however and popped into the River City Saloon for some garlic fries (and one of those nice shark beers). I did a quick brown pen sketch of part of the bar area, but I really must plan to go back and do a proper drawing of the whole thing, it really does merit a 180 degree curvilinear bar sketch, more than any other.
river city saloon, old sacramento

goodness gracious

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grace cathedral from the choir

San Francisco: after climbing the excruciatingly steep Nob Hill, leaving the shuffling Tenderloiners behind, I sketched Grace Cathedral. Regular listeners will recall that I drew the cover for their Christmas brochure last year, and was fortunate enough to go and sketch at their Christmas show itself. It is an amazing cathedral, and with my current desire to draw cathedrals (I have been trying to practice by drawing from books) I was eager to return. It was windy up on that hill. I stood behind a newspaper stand and drew the choir end. I drew in my Moleskine and coloured with watercolour, except for the sky which was done in a new blue Pitt marker I just bought – I was trying it out for colour. Darker than expected! It’s a magnificent building from the outside, but epic inside. I don’t get many opportunities to sketch cathedral interiors from life, and believe me it is a completely different animal from drawing from a photo. It’s all about trying to show the magnificence which is all around you. I drew on larger paper than usual, my Canson Urban Sketchers 7″x10″ sketchbook. After the craziness of Market Street, it was so peaceful sketching inside Grace Cathedral. There was a piano playing, and after a while a powerful baritone tested his tonsils, while to my right silent folk strolled around in circles following the lines of Grace’s famous labyrinth, as I stood sketching by a large stone pillar. I’m not a spiritual or religious person, but I’ve always loved cathedrals, the immense old stone and bright stained glass and beautiful acoustics.

inside grace cathedral, san francisco

notre dame, the beautiful

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Notre Dame de Paris
Oooh, you don’t get scenes like this in Davis.

This is the Cathedrale de Notre Dame, on the banks of the Seine in Paris. As if this magnificent building needed an introduction! At the end of a warm day full of sightseeing and playgrounds and puppets, we went to see Notre Dame in the late afternoon sunshine. Ever since I was a kid it was one of my favourite buildings; I visited there when I was about 12 or 13 with school and loved all the ancient cold stone and gargoyles and colourful rose windows. The grey pollution has all been scrubbed off now, and it glows in the golden early evening light. After some time playing in the sandpit next to the cathedral, my son went home for a pre-dinner nap with my wife while I stayed on to draw by the Seine. I stood next to those guys who draw all the portraits for the tourists (they seem to speak so many languages fluently) and drew this remarkable view. I think I have wanted to draw this for so many years now, so I savoured every moment.

amazing grace, how sweet the sound

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grace cathedral, san francisco

At the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco sits Grace Cathedral. Nob Hill is an interesting neighbourhood – full of big grand hotels and spectacular views, many years ago this windswept hill was too steep for regular San Franciscans to bother reaching, a place for hermits and rich mansion builders to live away from the rabble of the Barbary Coast. The cable car made it more easily accessible and it was by cable car that I made it up hill to sketch Grace Cathedral. I like this big cathedral. It has a labyrinth inside (it’s just drawn on the floor though, not with hedges or minotaurs, and the answers are at the back). That’s right – a Maze in Grace…

 nob hill house

I then sat in Huntington Park, in front of the cathedral, and noticed other people out drawing in sketchbooks. The weather was amazing, warm, golden sunlight everywhere, and people were out taking advantage. I sketched a smallish house which I found quite interesting looking.