Luis’s sketch of Paris’s world-famous Notre Dame has a limited color palette but this serves to let the quality of the architectural draftsmanship shine through. This expertly drawn sketch conveys depth, shadow and tonal recession, not just on the cathedral’s west facade but on the surrounding buildings, too. Just a few accents of color in the foreground crowd help lift the sketch by complementing the neutral—verging on somber—colors used elsewhere.
This watercolor offers a less commonly seen view of the cathedral and its rose (round) window. Stephanie describes her approach: “By walking around to the south face, I was able to catch some of the river too. I found a little hole amid the wall of book vendors, claimed my spot, and was able to sketch a side of this beautiful cathedral that often goes without much notice.”
Showing a similar view to Luis’s sketch, this was actually Juliette’s first attempt at drawing this monument, although it is in her hometown. She explains: “Facing the complexity of the construction and knowing some of the principles of Gothic architecture, I tried to build my drawing with simple shapes, retaining proportion between the elements. It’s not a perfectly exact drawing, but I think it gives the impression of the building.”
This was drawn from a similarly low viewpoint to a worm’s eye view, but it is in fact a three-point perspective. You can see the building recedes to two vanishing points, as with the usual two-point perspective—to the left and right of the cathedral—but it also tapers to a third somewhere way above us. Using a third vanishing point is a clever way of adding drama and emphasizing verticality when drawing tall buildings.