Process: Gathering up the Information for a Drawing

It's hot in the summer.

Freehand straight lines are tough without a table.
So I take multiple photographs of the buildings and use the images to make the drawings.

Trees, scaffolding, cars get in the way sometimes.

Close photographs of details allow me to draw them a little more accurately
- and much smaller.

What if....

I could make a drawing that documents the complexity and intricacy of

the architectural face of a single historic block in Savannah...

The buildings of Savannah reflect its 275-year history through periodic styles and available vernacular materials, and its streets are lined with magnolia trees and

live oak limbs dripping with Spanish moss, forming a lush canopy ceiling

over the 2.2 square mile historic district.

...To draw how I see the buildings in multiple dimensions - revealing the details and ornament behind the canopy, not captured in a photograph.

It began with two sketches in my sketchbook.

Conclusion: The sketchbook page (8 1/2 x 11) is too small to fit the 300' block.

Switching to a 14 x 17 sheet of drawing paper...
...the drawings got bigger and more detailed.

They still didn't fit.

So the buildings are threaded into a streetscape in Photoshop.