I recently travelled to Morocco and visited Fes. We stayed in the heart of the old town Medina, which is a large maze of houses (riads), alleyways, hanging carpets, kids playing, sights and smells. It was crowded, overwhelming, wonderful – and definitely qualifies as a "busy city scene".

I raided my photos and have put together a collage of them for referece. I am thinking I will use the main alley with hanging carpets as my setting, but swap out the carpets on the right side with a vendor or two, some cilantro/herbs, and piles of oranges. I will probably also strip out some carpets and leave some bare wall to have some breathing space.

A collage of photos for reference:

Fes Medina - image 1 - student project

9/4 - It actually works!

1-point perspective:

Fes Medina - image 2 - student project

2-point perspective:

Fes Medina - image 3 - student project

9/8 - Experimented with some 3-point perspective. Found that it was very hard to not have a 'cone' with the contents of the video lesson, had to do a lot of trials to get more box-like shapes. Found that you could usually not 'see' the top of the building unless it was below the horizon line (unlike in the video). Maybe the distance of my points played into this.

Fes Medina - image 4 - student project

Tried one of the fast tricks for drawing rows of windows/lines on a fence, etc. Found it hard to not have some that seemed 'off'. Am sure I just need to work a little larger/be more careful when aligning things:

Fes Medina - image 5 - student project

Laid out the first draft of my scene:

Fes Medina - image 6 - student project

9/23 - After a few more sketches to refine the composition, I made my final piece. Here it is right after being scanned:

Fes Medina - image 7 - student project

I imported into illustrator and battled my way through Live Tracing and Live Painting it. Here was my first coloured version:

Fes Medina - image 8 - student project

I liked it but it didn't feel quite right.. so I changed the blues to taupe/yellow for a more desert-y feel. I think this one is it!

Fes Medina - image 9 - student project

I've still got quite a ways to go with drawing perspective, comics, aaand mastering the colouring/tonal additions... but I think it's been a good start.

Thoughts? Would love to hear any feedback anyone might have! :)

Michelle Darwin

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