Before starting out with research for this exercise, I decided upon what sort of project I was creating my illustrations for. Out of the options listed in the book, I chose to create a series of illustrations for an article. Preferably as part of a travel magazine.

I started the visual research on a slightly different route than the one from the exercises. Instead of a point A to point B approach, I instead selected a boulevard and documented things I saw as I walked around on it.

Heroes Avenue (Bulevardul Eroilor in Cluj Napoca, Romania) is filled with landmarks like statues and important buildings like the opera, several churches, and a few statues and monuments. While I did stop to sketch several of these monuments and statues, I also made sure to capture the people around me and other aspects of the street.

The weather had not been the best, but I persevered nonetheless in my sketching endeavors. My ink did get slightly smudged and diluted with the fine rain drops, but I rather liked the texture, so I didn’t mind. Besides ink, I also used pencil and some chalk pastels, and of course, my telephone camera for photographs I would use when working at the studio.

Here I remarked upon the interesting height and design of this particular statue of Avram Iancu. The contrast between the traditional statue on top with the very modern geometrical characters with trumpets at the bottom caught my attention.

These are two statues guarding the front of the Opera. They represent two important figures in Romanian artistic history, Lucian Blaga and Mihai Eminescu. I found them interesting because of the contrast in poses. One relaxed and rounded in shape (Lucian Blaga), the other straight, stern and square (Mihai Eminescu).

The Opera House itself, which is filled with interesting textures and details. I tried to get several shots of both its entire form, and of its more decorative elements.

 While photographing the buildings and statues, I was also looking out for people. I happened to see some taxi drivers taking a break and drew a quick sketch of them and photographed one whose jacket I thought was interesting.

I tried to also capture the ambiance of the street itself by drawing a wider view and not just elements of the street.

On the flip side, I also looked for interesting small elements and textures like patterned glass, cobblestones and so on,

Significant monuments also include the tall monument to the writers of the Transylvanian Memorandum, crowned with a bell. And the other, the Capitoline Wolf statue with the inscription “To the City of Cluj, from Mother Rome – 1921”.

My favorite sketch has to be the long double spread where I tried to capture the different sorts of buildings on the street and how their roofs overlapped.

After coming back home, I started researching different types of articles, both from common travel magazines and some created by reputable illustrators. I analyzed the types of illustrations or photographs that they had, the way they were set up on the pages, the way the text wrapped around them and the way the images are incorporated with the text.

Armed with both sketches and photographs, I began working to create my final illustrations out of them. I both ignored and exaggerated parts of my sketches, then cropped, zoomed in and zoomed out of multiple photographs and overlapped some of the contexts in order to create my desired final product.

Concerning materials, I mostly used the materials I found most common when looking at reportage artists’ work such as: watercolor, ink, pencils, and minimal coloring and adjustments made using digital programs.

I started out with the Avram Iancu statue because I felt it would be important to incorporate some Romanian flag imagery into the “article”. In one of the photographs, I caught the statue peeking from between the flagpoles. I took that concept and changed the image around until I found it to be more appealing, then I recreated the scene in watercolor.

Then I zoomed in on the Opera House and drew some details I found important. The most distinctive of which are the statues of Apollo and Thalia at the top of the building.

The double spread illustration, I chose to color in simple bold colors using Photoshop. I experimented with using multiple colors and other variations, but eventually I chose to use the more subtle versions of the primary colors found in the Romanian flag.

I already had a sketch depicting the entire Memorandistilor monument, so I chose a different approach. Instead of drawing it top to bottom, I focused on the lower part with the inscription and the chalice, and extended the image to include the street and the people. I wanted to do so because the inscription on the monument specifically mentions “a people”, so I wanted to capture them as part of the history this monument is meant to remind us of.

I wanted to also depict people, not just monuments, so for this ink illustration, I cropped an image of a girl I thought looked very much like a typical Cluj student (of which there are many, Cluj is a city with a young population) and changed the proportions of the sketch until I found the composition made sense and until the image was focused on the character in the front.

When I was photographing the taxi drivers, I was mostly aiming to get a quick shot of the man’s coat because I liked its interesting patterns, but instead I captured a short moment in the two men’s conversation. I liked they way the one in the background looks like he is about to smile, the way the first man’s cigarette smoke was vanishing into the atmosphere, and the way the cars were all in a more or less neat row down the street. So I decided that instead of just using this photograph as a guide, to use it more as a direct reference for the image. I created this one in pencil, in order to have more precision, then adjusted it in Photoshop and took the liberty to only color in the yellow parts of the image in order to emphasize the context.

After I finished a number of images I thought was appropriate for a multiple-page article, I uploaded them to my computer and started playing around with how to set them on the pages.  First I created the “magazine” itself with page numbers and a fuzzy line where the middle of the book would be, then I played around with setting up the images and the text. Some images, like the one with Apollo from the Opera House, I had to continue adjusting in order for it to fit in with the rest of the images.

They all had to be adjusted in order for them to fit in the article nicely. For most of them, I simply created a fuzzy “painterly” texture with the digital paintbrush in order for them to look painted on the pages instead of just stuck on there. For the ink image with the student, I even extended the cobblestones on the white of the magazine page, and for the taxi driver image I extended the plume of smoke outside of the illustration. I chose to title the article “A Walk Down Heroes’ Avenue”. It is a straightforward title but the name of the avenue makes it sound more romantic. However, I chose to not actually write the article. The text is almost entirely Lorem Ipsum, excepting the two highlighted quotes, which are both extracted from the monuments illustrated.

What were the main challenges you overcame when drawing in public places? The main challenges were: the weather, the cold made my drawing sessions pretty short and it also made it less practical to use watercolors; the fact that I had to get used to capturing ideas quickly, before people moved around; and I also had to learn to find spots where I could both capture what I was intending to capture without disturbing others.

Has drawing in your sketchbook altered the way you think about how you use photography to document or record? Yes, it has. I have used photographs for drawing before, but always with a single photograph for a single drawing in mind, not with the intent of documenting multiple scenes or for recording in my sketchbook for study. That is something I intend to do more often, whether I choose to print the images out or simply use my photographs as part of a digital sketchbook.

What materials suited you best when you were working on location? At first, I thought I would use watercolor and pen, especially after seeing so many reportage artists use those materials in their work. But the weather proved that it was not feasible, as watercolors take a bit too long to dry when its cold, so I have chosen to stick to different widths of pen, colored pencils, graphite and chalk pastels. Though I think I will return to watercolors when the weather turns warm.

Do you see your drawings as stand alone drawings or would you prefer to develop them in a studio situation? I think I will always develop them in a studio, whether I redraft the entire thing or just make small adjustments and refinements in Photoshop.

How will you use your sketchbook drawings to lead to other ideas? I will use my sketchbook drawings for both inspiration and study. Drawing outside can offer a lot of opportunity for learning (perspective, people drawing, etc.) and opportunity for odd scenes one would have never thought of otherwise (a man singing a theme-song about wild berries at the market in order to attract customers, or a lady comforting her small child while he sits in the barber’s chair and gets a truly atrocious haircut, etc.)

Do you prefer working fast or slow? How will you use these approaches in future work? When drawing outside, I have worked pretty fast so far, but I want to start working slower too when the weather turns warmer. At home, I will always work slower, because I prefer to take my time with the details.

Are there qualities in the way you doodle that you can bring into your ideas within future work? Not really, and this probably means I have to up my doodle game, which is not something I have ever thought I should have to do.

In conclusion, despite challenges I have learned and experienced many useful things about research and drawing people and places in this assignment. I hope to continue applying the things I learned into future projects in order for them to be better researched and of higher quality.