Arc de Triomphe – One Line Drawing

I wasn’t sure if I would be able to finish this one on time – it certainly was a race to the finish line, but yes, my latest One Line Drawing of the Arc de Triomphe is complete!

Once again, my most ambitious effort in this style, I had to figure out how to draw statues and swirling geometric shapes without getting myself trapped. There is probably about 40 hours of work put into this one single drawing, taking me more than double the time of my previous drawings, but I think the effort paid off in the end.

ARC DE TRIOMPHE (ONE LINE DRAWING) - my most ambitious one line drawing yet, the details and endless statues were a real daunting task that I am amazed I weaved a path through.

ARC DE TRIOMPHE (ONE LINE DRAWING) – my most ambitious one line drawing yet, the details and endless statues were a real daunting task that I am amazed I weaved a path through.

The way I tackled drawing the statues was by sketching out the figures and using the shadows as my guidelines. On some, I outlines the figures, and in others, I suggested them in a kind of negative aspect-field to suggest where the figures stood. As for the geometric swirls . . . It was all about using a ruler, precise measurements and a steady hand.

There were numerous times where I felt as thought I was becoming trapped in this piece, but I always found a way out of it. Although I’ve been to the arch in person, I still find it fascinating just the huge scope and size of the structure, and am fascinated by the amount of arches that criss-cross one another. If I’m not mistaken, I believe the sculptures represent the reign of Napoleon and the come back from the French Revolution.

I didn’t know how I was going to start this daunting piece so I kind of just went at it, starting from the left, moving up, down and to the right. If you follow the line you will see that I quickly jump right into the first and largest statue. I figured that if I couldn’t figure that out, then there was no point wasting any effort doing everything else around it in case I screwed it up. Thankfully, I was satisfied with how it turned out.