Society of
Architectural
Illustrators

I have enjoyed making art my whole life. It led me to leave school early at 16 to pursue a career as a trainee Architectural Technologist working on board and T square, when pencil, Rotring pen and ink on tracing allowed us to develop our own personal expression and calligraphy skills on working drawings, way before digital technology negated the need for either individual skill set.

From there, in my 20’s I studied Architecture gaining a first at undergrad and commendation at post grad where previous drawn communication skills came into their own. However, the transition from technician to architect is not an easy one. Throwing off the shackles of detailing in favour of artistic expression and form making was painful at times and part of this transition for me, was to consciously move away from traditional ink based architectural orthogonal renderings to experiment with as many available mediums as possible.

CAD was in its infancy and unavailable to us in the 80’s, therefore hand illustration and personal expression in our work was an essential skill set which in my case led to several personal architectural engineering commissions including illustrations for two major bridge design competitions in the UK and Middle East.

My drawn communication skills have served me well during my career as project architect and professional client’s project manager working in several private and public offices. Throughout my architectural career I have sketched and drawn for relaxation whenever time allowed, mainly during holidays and as personal gifts for friends, family and work colleagues.

I retired at the end of the Pandemic in 2022, while living in my home in Southern Türkiye and decided that was the time to further develop myself as an artist and illustrator. From there I set out to exhibit and over the past two years have held solo exhibitions in Türkiye and in my hometown in County Down. This has led to many private architectural and landscape commissions.

This selection of drawings represent an approach I have unconsciously and more recently consciously developed in my architectural illustration. They represent the accuracy and detailed observation of architectural detailing within a loose line and colour rendering. They are to varying degrees, intentionally loose line ‘sketches’ and at the same time accurate proportionally correct renderings in watercolour, pen and ink.

All work was made in the past 2 years, some of personal interest, for example the 60’s listed Modernist radar station immediately adjacent to a Decimus Burton Victorian lighthouse in Fleetwood, Lancashire. Others, for example, the colourful gabled terraces in Cobh, Ireland, as a private commission. I have produced a reasonable body of work in recent times in a variety of mixed media including watercolour, pen and ink, acrylic and spirit marker.

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