Many eighteenth- or nineteenth-century buildings
employ cornices, string courses and window margins in
order to create panels of walls and frames to highlight key
architectural elements. The presence of these features
can be emphasised in the sketch by exaggerating the play
of light and shade on the façade. Similarly, modern
buildings with their exposed structure and service runs
also benefit from the use of this graphic technique. When
drawing urban space or landscape design, shade and
shadows create a necessary sense of substance to things
such as dwarf walls, hedges, trees and sculpture.
By placing elements in front of each other, shadows
can be cast from one object on to another. The layering of
objects in the picture not only enlivens the composition,
but adds spatial complexity to the subject. Elements
placed in front of a building such as lamp-posts, telephone
boxes or trees give a sense of depth to the sketch and
allow shadows to pass along the horizontal surfaces and
up the vertical ones. By such means the distances in plan
between object and observer can be expressed and
exploited graphically.
The function of shadows is, therefore, to make you
aware of the depth within the view: they give flat
two-dimensional subjects a semblance of reality. The
rendition of shadows follows similar conventions to
those of perspective. As a rule, darker shade and
stronger shadows should be in the foreground of the
sketch, becoming progressively lighter as they move into
the distance. This has the effect of reinforcing the illusion
of perspective.5.3
This pen drawing of the pioneer village of New
Lanark, Scotland, uses shade to express the
pedimented gable and to focus the eye upon
the cupola.
5.5
Simple pencil shading brings alive the three-dimensional
qualities of the urban spaces in central Prague (near
the top of Wenceslas Square in this instance). Here a
distinction is made graphically between object buildings
and the background architecture of the city.5.4
Shade, shadow and perspective have been used to
exploit the dramatic composition of this church
square in Gaeta in Italy. Notice how the columns
impose an enormous scale on the space, and how
cafés enliven the perimeter of the town square.48 Understanding architecture through drawing