Corfe Castle, Dorset

[Mike A]

The ruins of Corfe Castle in the southern county of Dorset dominate the stone walls of the village from a green hilltop. The scene was sketched last year - with the ever-helpful photos - from my hotel window with its foreshortened view over the rooftops. The castle, built in the 11th century, was besieged and laid waste in 1657 in the English Civil War.

I used ink almost exclusively for this illustration, with pen lines for the houses detail, and with a pastel overlay to give the impression of the hillside soil showing through the green grass. There are two inns in the village. The "Greyhound" upper storeys can be seen in the lower middle foreground, and the "Bankes Arms" signboards are shown side on to the lower right. To create the interiors of windows - curtains, etc., I use a "glass" layer which is then overlaid with a "window frames" layer - both in ink - and then sandwich a coarse pastel layer between them to create the effect of items seen through glass.

Mike