Drawing- Post 1

Last Week we were given the task of doing some perspective drawings of a train station in Stoke within 2 hours.

I find it quite difficult to draw on location because of all of the activity happening around me and there is no desk or comfy chair to settle down on and become absorbed into whatever I'm working on. When in a studio I would approach a perspective drawing by establishing the horizon/ eye level, plotting the vanishing point(s), and then proceed to construct my drawing; but on location, particularly this one, I couldn't find the focus or stability to carry out my usual process- I did attempt to do a rough structure with my first drawing but I didn't feel it was helpful in this situation so I decided to simply sketch what I saw.

Admittedly, I don't usually approach location drawing with my structured process as I feel that the time spent on location should be spent trying to capture the atmosphere of the place within one's drawings, but I thought that as the session was about perspective drawing I should try and construct my drawings more accurately. 

The first drawing I attempted was a one point perspective of the platforms, a string of lights were running  in a line just above me and at the end of the platforms stood an arched metal structure; using a graphite stick I laid down my horizon line and plotted the vanishing point but I found myself lingering over the lights and generally not enjoying the drawing so I scrapped it, turned around, whipped out my brush pen and decided to go freestyle with my next drawing. Here is the result:

Even though I feel that I didn't fulfil the original task of producing a perspective drawing, as this drawing, in my opinion, lacks depth and the perspective is not very well defined, this sketch has grown on me; the brush pen is a particular favourite tool of mine, I love to play with line and the pen forces me out of my usual perfectionist tendencies in favour of more energetic strokes.
I feel that this style of drawing added a lot of character to what could've been a rather sterile image and I'm particularly pleased with my rendering of the metal structures in the background as I think they gave the picture more depth and the way they curved around with the track was what attracted me to that view in the first place.

My main concerns with the image and the experience was, as I said before, I think that my drawing lacks depth and this is a problem that I feel is a recurrent one throughout my work and one that I hope to improve upon; and second is my speed, or lack thereof- this drawing was the only one I produced within the two hour session.
I am well aware that speed is a necessity within the industry and I think that at this point my lack of speed would be the biggest concern for a potential employer; my slowness has always been an issue throughout my studies, I am a very thorough worker and I always aim to produce high quality artwork but I do recognise my lack of speed as my biggest weakness, again I aim to improve on this.

What have I learned from this task?
This task has highlighted to me the need to practise my drawing on location skills, not only should it help with my speed but I think that practising location and perspective drawing will help me to develop my drawing abilities in regards to relative scaling of objects in space and creating more depth within my work.