Freehand Sketching

Paul Laseau

Overview - Table of Contents - Introduction

Introduction

Traditionally, freehand sketching has had an important role in architectural education and practice. While digital media and developing communication technologies are bringing new tools to design, freehand sketching continues to provide unique and vital capabilities to architects and designers in allied fields.

Because appropriate design solutions must be based on extensive knowledge of the design possibilities, continuing education and research are critical parts of architectural careers. Freehand sketching provides an important tool for investigating and understanding existing and potential solutions to problems of our physical environment, such as lack of viable public social space or disorganized pedestrian and vehicular movement.

Appropriate design solutions also depend upon a productive dialogue among designers and the clients and users of environments. Such dialogues are greatly enhanced by the ability to communicate well both visually and verbally. The immediacy and informality of freehand sketching supports a relaxed and fluid conversation, and contributes to the client’s confidence in a successful outcome for a project.

This book is a resource for both beginners and those returning to sketching, including traveling architects, artists, and designers setting out to discover the world around them.

The intention is to provide students with a basic guide to develop their freehand sketching skills and design instructors with a means of enriching the early design studio experience through effective instruction in freehand sketching. For individuals at any stage in their education or career, this book also offers suggestions for more effective graphic communication.

The importance of extensive reading for successful writing or extensive listening for musical composition is affirmed by writers and musicians. A parallel condition holds for visual artists¾painters, sculptors, and architects. Success in artistic creativity depends upon extensive visual exposure leading to acute visual perception and imagination.

Approach

The emphasis on freehand sketching as a means to visual literacy is the thread that binds the exercises and examples throughout this book. People who sketch extensively are aware that drawing affects the way they see and that the way they see is an important factor in the effectiveness and quality of their drawings. Similarly, what you see critically affects the way you think. This relationship between sight and thoughts provides each of us with unique ways of drawing and thinking creatively. For these reasons, seeing and thinking should be seen as an integral part of sketching.

To take full advantage of the versatility of sketching, you are encouraged to go beyond the subjects covered here. Just as exercises in composition and perspective are mutually reinforcing, the drawing of both people and architecture or flowers and machinery brings new perceptions and increased sensitivity to each subject.

For some, the prime reason to take up sketching is to produce admirable drawings that provide a sense of accomplishment. Although such motivation is important, narrow concern about results not only inhibits learning but also hides an even greater source of motivation: the wealth of other experiences that sketching brings. If you look carefully at the subjects you sketch, a new, exciting world of awareness and delight opens to you. For example, the sketching of a street may reveal how public space can be animated by:

• the acute angles of intersecting streets,
• the play of light and shadow,
• the contrasts between the cool darkness under the cafe awning and the dazzling glare of the sun rebounding from the buildings in the background
• the important role of people in making a view stimulating.

Sketching-Seeing-Sketching

Seeing what you never could see before is the unexpected bonus of sketching; it is also key to the development of drawing skills. Sketching on a regular basis provides the opportunity to practice observation. To take advantage of the opportunity, it is helpful to assume a new awareness of the visual world around you. The illustrations on this page are details of larger sketches, some of which appear elsewhere in this book. In each instance, sketching required a close look at the subject, resulting in a new awareness a wine glass reflecting light, the patterns of a house facade, the peculiar configuration of a specific type of tree, and the components of a jeep.

Because seeing and sketching are so interdependent it is difficult to learn to see before beginning to sketch, and vice versa. Drawing is the key to effective seeing, and seeing is the key to effective drawing. So, where do we start? The drawing/seeing dynamic is like a motor that needs a jump-start. Motivation is the starter for sketching¾if you can derive initial interest or enjoyment from your first efforts to your sketch, you will begin to see, leading to an improvement in your sketches and increased motivation.

This book is intended to provide the necessary tools and understanding to begin sketching with a basic level of confidence. Ultimately, however, individual success in learning to sketch fluidly and competently depends heavily on practice. This means that you must be committed to frequent freehand sketching throughout your career. Sustaining such a commitment is assured by simply deriving enjoyment from your sketching. Many an attempt to learn to draw has been thwarted by the assumption that it is a difficult but necessary task. As beneficial as drawing is to the designer, real skill develops from the pleasure that you get from drawing rather than the guilt about your shortcomings.

As you undertake the exercises in this book and later as your skills progress, strive to:

• Draw only what truly interests you. You need not limit yourself to drawing the subjects in this book. Try to find subjects that inspire you.

• Accept opportunities not obligations. If time limits, uncomfortable circumstances, or a complex subject begin to cause stress, stop and adjust your expectations as to what can be reasonably accomplished while assuring your satisfaction with the experience.

• Please yourself, not others. Finally, sketching should be seen as a continuing source of enjoyment and learning rather than a string of performances for other people. Ultimately, success in freehand sketching is a highly personal process. It must first work for you if it is ever to be useful to others.

The chapters in this book are arranged so that the reader can build skills at a reasonable pace. Beginners will want to start at the first chapter, but more advanced sketchers may start at later chapters that best meet their needs. Chapter one concentrates on immersing the reader in the act of sketching to develop basic eye-hand coordination and learn the process of “building” sketches. Chapters two and three extend sketch “building” to environmental scale subjects found in architecture and landscape architecture design, elaborating on the techniques of sketch construction, tone, and detail rendering. Direction for sketching a variety of environments in the field is provided in chapter four. Finally, chapter five discusses some of the possibilities for extending the application of freehand sketching through studio-based methods.

ISBN: 0-393-73112-X
Winter 2004
112 pages, paper, 200