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helicopter – Matthew French-Holt

Hospital Helicopters

With a week to go till the end of her contract, Ashley recommended a new place to wait as she finishes up her shifts at the hospital – a lobby up on the 4th floor which overlooks the main entrance and the helicopter landing pad.

I was only able to make it up there twice for a sketching session. Both times I opted to draw the same view, focusing on the helicopter.

Here’s the first sketch, in pencil and then finished with ink and marker:


After the fact, I realized that I spent too much time worrying about the dimensions of different components (which didn’t turn out accurate anyway!) and ended up with a stiff drawing. No sense of flow, no energy or life. Plus, if you don’t already have an image of the area in mind, it’s a bit hard to visualize.

So my focus on the second drawing was to capture more of the area and loosen up a bit.

Again, here’s the pencil sketch and then the finished ink and marker version. (It’s all one image, I simply do a quick sketch in pencil then ink over top of it, erase the graphite, and then add shadows with the marker.)


I think that this was a much more successful sketch – with everything fitting together better and giving a fuller representation of the view that I saw.

The second was drawn on Ashley’s last shift, so there won’t be any more hospital sketches at Cape Fear Valley. Horray for more adventures!