Society of
Architectural
Illustrators

I am a retired registered, RIBA and RIAI chartered architect. My career in drawing and making buildings and architecture began at 16 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 effectively negated the need for either individual skill set.

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. 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 on crit submissions.

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.

My drawn communication skills have served me well during a varied and evolving career as project architect, project manager and professional client working across corporate, higher education and various government agencies and departments.

Throughout my architectural career I have sketched and drawn for relaxation whenever time allowed, mainly during holidays and as personal gifts and commissions from 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 it was now time to further commit and develop myself as an artist and illustrator. From there I set out to exhibit and over the past three 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 consciously developed in my architectural illustration. They are 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 long term personal interest, for example the main image is a 60’s listed Modernist radar station immediately adjacent to Decimus Burton’s Victorian lighthouse in my childhood hometown of Fleetwood, Lancashire. Others, for example, the colourful gabled terraces in Cobh, Ireland, the various public houses and dwellings are private commissions.

I continue to evolve this approach in addition to other non-architectural subjects including portraits, domestic animals and landscapes in a variety of mixed media including watercolour, pen and ink, acrylic and spirit marker.

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