Berlin Looking South - Nearly There
Back at the studio. The preliminary felt pen drawings are near enough ready and soon I can start the final fine liner pen version – yepee!
Some elements need a bit more tweaking e.g. the New Synagogue in the foreground. Everyone who knows the city would recognize it because of the dome, some characteristic features and the location however, I’m not entirely happy, the shape makes it clearly a dome, of course, but it isn’t really this specific one yet.
Cupolas are something very particular I noticed, they really have their own identity and character. The proportions, slim and slender or large and plump, the ratio between tambour and actual dome and its degree of arching give each and every one a distinctive personality. So, one might think “a dome is a dome”, however, St Paul’s in London is not St Peter’s in Rome is not the Capitol in Washington is not the Taj Mahal and thus not the New Synagogue in Berlin!
So, back to the drawing board again until I get the “spirit” of the building absolutely spot on.
I definitely wanted to give the synagogue building the appropriate prominence in the foreground. It is not only an iconic landmark but it's also very special that the city where the Nazis planned the holocaust is one of the few places, where a synagogue stands out so prominently as an integral part of the skyline.
Some other areas can also benefit from another round of refining since the better the preliminary drawing the nicer and easier it is to draw the final version.
I need to take into consideration that a broad and suggestive felt pen lines look great in a sketch mode but the fine lines are almost somehow technical and therefore need to be really precise.
A felt pen line always leaves some space of interpretation for a thin fine liner and believe it or not: two millimetres to the right or to the left can make the difference between right or wrong!
One more make over for Reichstag and Chancellery, Brandenburg Gate and Unter den Linden including the embassies of Russia, the UK and the US.
