Some buildings become part of a city's muscle memory long before anyone thinks to mourn them. This original urban sketch captures Crowtree Leisure Centre as Sunderland carried it in its bones — a great angular presence that generations of the city's people passed through, swam in, and took for granted in the best possible way.
The composition pitches the building at a bold diagonal, its flat roofline and steel framework driving hard into the upper left of the picture plane, the eye pulled upward by a chimney stack silhouetted against a loose, rain-washed blue sky. The façade is rendered in layers of blue-grey wash, the windows blocked in with the kind of confident economy that only comes from looking hard at something — not photographing it, but truly seeing it. Scaffolding-like latticework fans out down the left edge, and the wide entrance frontage opens across the lower half of the composition, its surface textured with ink hatching and pale shadow. Splashes of deep green — trees or shrubs pressing in from the forecourt — break the grey with a note of stubborn, ordinary life. Two figures pause near the entrance, one in orange, one in teal, given just enough presence to remind you this place was always full of people.
The sky is blue and blustery, the kind of Sunderland afternoon that gets on with itself regardless. It is not a photograph of a building so much as a record of what it felt like to know it was there — solid, functional, unremarkable in the way that only the genuinely beloved ever are. Now it's gone, and this is what remains.
Details:
Original pen and Inktense artwork
Size: A5 (14.8 × 21 cm)
Created using Derwent Inktense on archival-quality 300gsm watercolour paper
Signed on the front
Unmounted and unframed
Carefully packaged to ensure safe delivery
Please note: Colours may vary slightly from what you see on screen due to lighting during photography and differences between monitors. This is an original hand-painted artwork, and small variations or natural textures in the paper are part of its unique character. Mount and frame shown in images (if applicable) are for display purposes only and are not included unless stated.
Some buildings become part of a city's muscle memory long before anyone thinks to mourn them. This original urban sketch captures Crowtree Leisure Centre as Sunderland carried it in its bones — a great angular presence that generations of the city's people passed through, swam in, and took for granted in the best possible way.
The composition pitches the building at a bold diagonal, its flat roofline and steel framework driving hard into the upper left of the picture plane, the eye pulled upward by a chimney stack silhouetted against a loose, rain-washed blue sky. The façade is rendered in layers of blue-grey wash, the windows blocked in with the kind of confident economy that only comes from looking hard at something — not photographing it, but truly seeing it. Scaffolding-like latticework fans out down the left edge, and the wide entrance frontage opens across the lower half of the composition, its surface textured with ink hatching and pale shadow. Splashes of deep green — trees or shrubs pressing in from the forecourt — break the grey with a note of stubborn, ordinary life. Two figures pause near the entrance, one in orange, one in teal, given just enough presence to remind you this place was always full of people.
The sky is blue and blustery, the kind of Sunderland afternoon that gets on with itself regardless. It is not a photograph of a building so much as a record of what it felt like to know it was there — solid, functional, unremarkable in the way that only the genuinely beloved ever are. Now it's gone, and this is what remains.
Details:
Original pen and Inktense artwork
Size: A5 (14.8 × 21 cm)
Created using Derwent Inktense on archival-quality 300gsm watercolour paper
Signed on the front
Unmounted and unframed
Carefully packaged to ensure safe delivery
Please note: Colours may vary slightly from what you see on screen due to lighting during photography and differences between monitors. This is an original hand-painted artwork, and small variations or natural textures in the paper are part of its unique character. Mount and frame shown in images (if applicable) are for display purposes only and are not included unless stated.
