Hi!
If you are following me on social media, you’ve probably seen the architect series that I’ve made for Petra for World Architecture Day. In this post, I would like to share how I came up with the idea and how the work progressed.
First of all, we came together with Neslihan Şık, who is also an architect, lecturer and editor in some of Turkey’s leading architecture magazines and we almost came to an agreement about the names for the project after several meetings and talked about these architects’ works, characteristics and their place in architecture history. Then, things started to take form. In conclusion, my decision was to use the well known quotes and buildings behind the architects on the illustrations.
The one below was the very first sketch of the work. Some ideas stayed the same, some of them changed a lot!
After some sketches, I started to collect related images and I made some more research on their works, career, personal life and choice of clothing. While I was cutting the papers and pasting them on large cardboards, it was like a ritual to initiate my work process. This method kept me extremely motivated because seeing these cardboards with those splendid architects all around me, made me eager to work and more enthusiastic about the project.
After clearing the questions in my mind, I prepared a template for the settlement and started to draw the digital illustrations.
My aim was to create something in which these strong characters state:
I did it!
I said it!
Then I painted the drawings and placed the quotations. However, it needed a finishing touch, some kind of addition. So I thought that the sun from my previous illustrations can complete the whole composition. Not only helping me to highlight the significant words from the architects’ quotes, but also the fact that the sun symbolises the light that these brilliant architects spread all around. In addition to all of this, I was also quoting myself visually.
On the left – “Rising Sun” – Watercolor – 10cm
On the right – “Waiting For The Sun” – Acrylic on Canvas – 100cmx150cm
Finally the idea worked and I completed the illustrations.
Le Corbusier – Villa Savoye
Mies Van Der Rohe – Brick Country House
Frank Lloyd Wright – Guggenheim Museum
Walter Gropius – Bauhaus
Petra commissioned this work for presenting it to well known architects as a gift on World Architecture Day. So, we printed them on stone. Here is the eventual shape they took.
Thank you!
Ekin Büyükşahin