One incredible artists draws famous cities, such as New York and Paris, using his memories. Stefan Bleekrode explained, “The city fascinates me, no it totally absorbes me, actually it excites me to such degree that I feel like spending hours, days, weeks and sometimes months recreating in fine detail my impressions of all great cities I’ve visited.”
While realism on the scale that Bleekrode uses may not be exciting to everyone, his drawings are fascinating — especially since he doesn’t reference photos to draw them.
Instead, Bleekrode writes, “Mainly from memory, I reconstruct whole cities in pen and ink and not a single little detail is lost on me.”
Whether it is a streetlight, subway entrance, shop front or a park sign, nothing is left out of the drawings.
Bleekrode adds that his goal is to “reproduce as much as possible the same sensation” he had when he walked the streets and looked at the buildings of that particular city.
Sometimes the artist makes sketches in pen or watercolor to use as an emergency reference. Rarely he will use photographic material, but “only as support.”
While New York holds a special place in his heart, Stefan Bleekrode explains that Rome, London, Budapest, Paris, Amsterdam, and other cities give him “an endless amount of images and perspectives.”
Along with reproductions of these cities, Bleekrode also uses the images to create “imaginary but highly realistic” cities that could exist, but don’t quite yet.
For more photos of Stefan Bleekrode’s work drawing cities from memory, you can take a look at his website here. Along with his Cityscapes collection, the artist also draws realistic recreations of his travels and landscapes he has seen.
