With blue skies and warm sunshine I decided that I just had to be outside this lunchtime and drawing something interesting; the only problem was finding that special view. So I wandered around the Barbican until I spotted an unusually decorative chimney that happens to belong to the old Whitbread Brewery (now a conservation area). In the bright light it rather stood out to the naked eye:
So I settled down in the shade to sketch the most interesting features of the chimney and perhaps to make use of the distinct shadows being cast across the structure. Getting the perspective down accurately foxed me at first but once I realised how much the top flared out the rest of the tower kind of fell into place. The slightly annoying aspect is that I couldn't quite work out the best way to represent the detail of the bricks and in the end resorted to an impressionistic approach:
Still I'm happy with the general proportions of the chimney and the fact that all of the different parts are sized correctly. In theory London should be full of architecture worth sketching but in practice building are either too large to comfortably draw or are obscured in some way - so finding a little detail like this is rather rewarding. It's definitely an approach that I'll be returning to.