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Allan T Adams

@allantadams.bsky.social

1.4K followers 400 following 1.3K posts

A semi-retired architectural illustrator, drawing buildings & old stuff to relieve stress. Illustration, art, archaeology, conservation, reading. FSA, Fellow Society of Architectural Illustrators (FSAI). No NFTs.

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · Mar 25

An introduction as I have a number of new followers on Bluesky. I used to record historic buildings and illustrated their development and former use for a living.

I still draw old buildings & other things to promote understanding, particularly of the past & often of subjects in York, England.

A group of pictures from the recent career of an architectural illustrator. Top row, left to right: timber framed building, Halifax bomber, detail of a window. Middle row: using colour pencils, a man sketching while standing up, drawing a busy town street. Bottom row: a doorway, a man drawing on a mountain top, colour pencil drawing of roof tiles.

Text and illustrations of a man drawing an archaeological plan and a house with a field boundary wall.

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 50m

For #ADoorableThursday 37 Tanner Row, York. Built as a railway hotel in 1852-55, offices from 1899. I worked in a room at the back from 1999-2016 when I retired.

#ArchitecturalIllustration
#Pencil #drawing
#ArtYear

Pencil drawing of a person passing a doorway with a shallow balcony that has a stone balustrade. There is balcony with an iron balustrade in front of the first floor windows.

Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 12h

I did a bit of work in Beverley Minster in the late 1990s but didn't get to know the town very well. It seemed to be fairly good for shopping then. I know a bit more about the medieval buildings having done illustration work on some of them without visiting the town again.

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 13h

It sounds like Hull is similar to my home town of Doncaster. My sister lives just outside the city & avoids going into the centre. I hear the M &S there is moving to an out of the centre location too, probably one of the last large retailers until then.

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 13h

The bigger M & S that York has is on the Vanguard shopping estate north of the city. I haven't been there as it's a pain to get to, even with a car. My biggest gripe is that there is no proper arts supply shop. Surprising given the number of professional artists in the city.

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 13h

I've lived in York 30+ years. The Potter theme will I'm sure pass. More lamented is the loss of large retail outlets from the city centre & the proliferation of bars & coffee shops. On the + side is the continued use of historic buildings & not their total loss.

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 18h

Shambles, York with number 10 in the foreground. Like many shops here it was once a butcher's shop & still had hooks under a canopy for hanging meat. It now sells Harry Potter "potions".

#ArchitecturalIllustration
#pencil #drawing
#ArtYear

Pencil drawing of a narrow street with old buildings overhanging the pavement. In the right foreground is a former butchers shop with a deep shelf and a wooden bar over the window with hooks for hanging meat or goods for sale.

Pencil drawing of the underside of a canopy protecting a bar equipped with hooks for hanging meat or other goods outside a shop window.

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 23h

Done. Take care.

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Reposted by Allan T Adams

Tareq 🇵🇸 @tareqgazaa.bsky.social · 1d

October 7th – Two Years Later

Today marks two years since the war began in Gaza — 720 days of destruction, loss, and no stability.

Before October 7, I was a software engineer, working hard to build a better future.

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you. Though the trio of buildings in the centre look very similar the details reveal they are of different dates. One of them has had the floor level changed too.

Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 1d

The worst of worlds colliding in Shambles is the number of Harry Potter theme shops. 🙄

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 1d

The basic structures are 15th & 16th century but most of the walls & windows were rebuilt in the 1950s. The brick one to left of the older trio was built c1771, converted to a butcher shop in the 1800s and rebuilt in present form in the 1980s. Hence my interest.

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you. 😊

Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you..🙂

Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 1d

I think a lot of medieval streets throughout Europe looked like this many years ago. This one almost disappeared in the 1950s but has become a big tourist attraction.

Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you. I've drawn this scene several times. It never gets dull. 🙂

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 1d

Early morning in Shambles, York to celebrate the drawing's birthday. A fine pie shop can be found on the right, by the person with a black top, just about the last butcher type shop still there.

#ArchitecturalIllustrdtion
#pencil #drawing
#ArtYear

Pencil drawing of a narrow street with a few people looking through shop windows. A group of medieval buildings dominate the centre of the view. Although they have modern shop fronts they retain shelves and fixings from earlier use as butchers shops.

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you. I still, despite practice, find drawing window glass easier than wheels. The latter seldom seem to come out as round looking as I would like. 🙄

Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 2d

FB memories have served these work in progress snapshots from 2021, 2020 & 2018 for 6th October. York Minster, 37 Tanner Row, York & Glister Meteor being restored. The pencils are 0.3mm but different makes...

#ArchitecturalIllustration
#pencil #drawing

A Pentel GraphGear 0.3mm pencil resting on an incomplete drawing of York Minster.

A Staedtler Graphite 90.3mm pencil, Tombow Mono Zero eraser and blending stump resting on an incomplete pencil drawing of a 19th century building.

A Pentel P203 0.3mm pencil and Tombow Mono Zero eraser resting on an incomplete drawing of an aeroplane undergoing restoration.

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 3d

Thank you. The only advice I can give is to ensure that you keep your skill set as broad as possible. My main skills were traditional drawing but adapted to measured drawings. Secondary skills included some computer drafting but I stuck mainly with what I was good at & keep practicing.

Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 3d

I'm afraid I have drawn very few castle plans and none for the English Heritage guidebooks. I did draw an orientation bird's-eye view of Brodsworth Hall and a cutaway drawing of the Cold War bunker in York.

Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 3d

Thank you. I didn't have all those skills to begin with. Many I acquired 'on the job'. If employers and governments could grasp that. 🙄

Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 3d

Thank you. The top right image in the composite picture is the hillfort at Beacon Hill, on the Highclere estate in Berkshire and Hampshire border area. The other one is Figsbury Rings, a Neolithic ring work in Wiltshire.

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Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 3d

Thank you Geraint. Our paths didn't cross very often but I always enjoyed working as part of a team with colleagues. We always got to learn more about our project subjects.

Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 3d

I did after the 'merger' of the Royal Commission with English Heritage. We had a different brief to the larger organisation and that has ceased to have any effect as far as I am aware.

Allan T Adams @allantadams.bsky.social · 3d

It's the 43rd anniversary of when I joined the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, the start of a career drawing old stuff. Almost 35 years later I 'retired' in 2016 but still drawing old stuff, 'illustrating the evidence for past ways of life'.

#ArchitecturalIllustration

Composite image of the author drawing with a dip pen & ink, an earthwork illustrated with hachures, an historic shading technique, the author giving a talk to colleagues & a colour cutaway drawing of a medieval house.

An illustrator at work with a dip pen and bottle of ink drawing a plan of an archaeological monument. On the desk are a table lamp and roll of drawing film. In the background another illustrator can be seen at work at a sloping drawing board.

Cutaway drawing of a Royal Observer Corps underground nuclear war monitoring post.

Cutaway drawing of a railway goods station building showing train wagons being unloaded and then despatched by horse drawn carts.

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