Sketches

Saturday 14 September 2013

Watts Towers

Watts towers is a complex of 17 open "filigrain" towers, all made by a single guy, an italian immigrant called Simon Rodia. He built these towers with his own hands in his spare time, between 1920 and 1955. The towers are huge, made of concrete and competely covered with tiles and broken porcelain.

I had never been very much interested in Los Angeles, but after reading about this building in the early 80's, it was the first good reason for wanting to visit LA.
Unfortunately it was located in a dangerous neigbourhood: a fellow architect once told me he was robbed at gunpoint in front of this building.

Anyway, I visited the building on the last day we were in LA. And fantastic it was. But also a bit like a landed UFO in a suburban street. Weird.

I tried to draw it on location, but failed miserably. Below you see the result. So bad that I never intended to post it here.

But sometimes I use failed drawings to experiment and try out things. And sometimes it works.
Even if the new version is still not that sparkling, it's far better than the original (at least in my opinion).

Let's call it recycling.

8 comments:

Michael Lukyniuk said...

I think that this illustration works out very well. My attention is drawn to the face and the towers act as an embellishment. Your composition worked out fine.

Michael Lukyniuk said...

I think that this illustration works out very well. My attention is drawn to the face and the towers act as an embellishment. Your composition worked out fine.

Rene Fijten said...

I am glad you like it, I am glad that in the end the drawing improved considerably.

Rodney van den Beemd said...

Experiment geslaagd Rene, vind hem wel erg bijzonder geworden!

Rodney van den Beemd said...

Experiment geslaagd Rene, vind hem wel erg bijzonder geworden!

Rene Fijten said...

Dank je Rodney. Is dat "plak"werk van afgelopen cursusjaar nog ergens goed voor geweest.

rob carey said...

I don't know if you remember, but a long time ago I drew a picture of the man who built Watts Towers, as well as a painting of two kids buying ice cream from an ice cream truck parked at Watts Towers. Very interesting place indeed.

Rene Fijten said...

Rob, haha, guess what: when I was drawing his face I thought: this is a typical face that Rob should be drawing. But to be honest I had forgotten about that drawing, that was 2009...