Illustration class - Invisible Cities

This project was based on a book by Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities. Entire book consists of 50 or so short descriptions of different imaginary cities. Some are pretty abstract and bizarre, but most are more or less imaginable. We were supposed to choose one and illustrate it. 

After some reading and analyzing and some more reading and analyzing I finally chose the city of Esmeralda. Here is the description: 

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In Esmeralda, city of water, a network of canals and a network of streets span and

intersect each other. To go from one place to another you have always the choice
between land and boat: and since the shortest distance between two points in
Esmeralda is not a straight line but a zigzag that ramifies in tortuous optional
routes, the ways that open to each passerby are never two, but many, and they
increase further for those who alternate a stretch by boat with one on dry land.

      And so Esmeralda's inhabitants are spared the boredom of following the same
streets every day. And that is not all: the network of routes is not arranged on
one level, but follows instead an up-and-down course of steps, landings, cambered
bridges, hanging streets. Combining segments of the various routes, elevated or on
ground level, each inhabitant can enjoy every day the pleasure of a new itinerary
to reach the same places. The most fixed and calm lives in Esmeralda are spent
without any repetition.

      Secret and adventurous lives, here as elsewhere, are subject to greater
restrictions. Esmeralda's cats, thieves, illicit lovers move along higher,
discontinuous ways, dropping from a rooftop to a balcony, following gutterings
with acrobats' steps. Below, the rats run in the darkness of the sewers, one
behind the other's tail, along with conspirators and smugglers: they peep out of
manholes and drainpipes, they slip through double bottoms and ditches, from one
hiding place to another they drag crusts of cheese, contraband goods, kegs of
gunpowder, crossing the city's compactness pierced by the spokes of underground
passages.

      A map of Esmeralda should include, marked in different coloured inks, all
these routes, solid and liquid, evident and hidden. It is more difficult to fix on
the map the routes of the swallows, who cut the air over the roofs, dropping long
invisible parabolas with their still wings, darting to gulp a mosquito, spiralling
upwards, grazing a pinnacle, dominating from every point of their airy paths all
the points of the city.

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And then the process was pretty straight forward. No cutting, no glueing, just simple watercolor and pens. But first, of course, the sketch. All cities in the book are divided into different categories and Esmeralda is a trading city. So besides showing all the intertwined canals, streets and passages, I thought I should include a few people hauling some kind of goods.  

After this initial sketch I tried some more variations, but still this one remained my favorite and so I just began working on my final illustration. 

First in pensil, adjusting the composition and architecture details as I went along...

then with micron pens (which I forgot to take a picture of) and then with watercolor.

This city didn't strike me as a particularly happy one, so I decided to use a muted color palette. 

And so after several hours of watercolor layering, erasing mistakes and adding details with pens, my version of Esmeralda was finished. 

Couple details: