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Something that I have been thinking about recently has been the actual medium that I am using and will be using in the future. Most of this is due to the fact that I will be doing quite a bit of drawing/rendering in the coming months and I am comfortable with certain set of tools. They are what I know, what I understand and what I have some competence with. This has lead me to wondering about the different groups of tools. The first grouping is the pencil and ink group. When I say ink, I include pens and computer plotting. They achieve the same thing, in the same manner. The only difference is that a computer is controlling one of them. These seem the core of architectural drawing. They are what people learn first and what is produced most often in firms. I suppose that is due to the speed of which drawings can be completed. They are the most efficient but they are also the simplest. That is not to demean them, just a analysis of their characteristic. The pencil and ink create Line drawings, most often. They are simple. Line after line, defining space, conveying the base information for a set of drawings. The construction set; meant to convey information in a simple manner, straightforward and concise.
As an extension of this, the pencil and ink can be used to render the drawings. Adding texture and shadows. Giving a bit more meaning and information to the drawings. They create a character for the building that is being drawn. Give it a bit more depth, literally and figuratively. These drawings are usually black and white, the medium I seem to be using the most often.
The next grouping is the watercolour, markers, painted. In essence, it is the addition of colour to the previous group. They become more literal. Convey more information again. The viewer no longer needs to imagine what colour fills the room. It is laid out in front of them. But even these can be ambiguous in some regards. It isn't a photograph, it is still and interpretation of what may be.
The final group that I have identified is that of the photorealistic drawings. This mainly consists of the computer rendering. Normally, these drawings don't leave much for the viewer to invent in their imagination. It is exactly as the building will be. Material, colours, and scale.
All of these still leave a lot of the image up to the artist creating them, but the further along the groupings go, the less is left to the imagination of the viewer. Something can be said for allowing the that person to fill in what ever they see fit. It can allow for some ambiguity in the design, which can be useful. The tools can determine what type of drawing is being created, and vice versa. It comes down to the intent of the drawing to figure out which of them fits best.
This is a scan of the drawing I am currently working on. Looking back at 3x3x3, it was said that the bed was the most successful element of that drawing. This new drawing is building on that success. Staring with the same bed, let the drawing generate the design. No orthographics, just rendering. It is a reversal of the standard way that architects work. This drawing is the work in progress. I thought documenting how the design grows and develops would be a useful exercise.
There are so many things happening in the folds of the fabric. The way the lights hits the fabric creates the deep shadows and causes the gradients to spread outward across the bed. From this, other ideas have begun to develop about the design of the rest of the room. The chaos of the bed makes me want to have a more regular pattern to the floor. Something more linear; Wooden floor boards, crossing under the bed horizontally. They will also need to be darker than the sheets. The sheets are very faint while being surrounded by white, but with something darker butting up against it, they will be easily distinguishable.
Below are the songs that I have chosen for the soundtrack for my thesis. Some of them are easy to identify as related, and others are a bit more difficult:
Working Full-Time - The Constantines
Here I Dreamt I was an Architect - The Decemberists
My Mind is Ramblin' - The Black Keys
Draw Us Lines - The Constantines
Photocopier - Fujiya & Miyagi
Making Plans for Nigel - Nouvelle Vague
Lines in the Suit - Spoon
A Strange Arrangement of Colour - I Am Kloot
We Will Become Silhouettes - Postal Service
Same Old Thing - Black Keys
I would be open to suggestions for other songs or if anyone just wants to comment on what is already here.
I found this t-shirt at Threadless.com and wanted to share it. It isn't something that will go into my thesis but I found it interesting non the less. I had never thought of drafting tools in this way before.
I made an observation yesterday in my daybook, while I was working on the next drawing. There is a definite difference in the creation of space (on paper) between Line drawings and Rendering. The lines of an orthographic drawing define the space, interior and exterior, with a single stroke. The line divides one area of the page from another, just as a wall would do in the built world. It is a straightforward way to create the spaces that the designer is looking for.
With a rendering, however, it is more complicated. You can't create that boundary in the same way. Rendering is the illustration of how light interacts with the different components in a design. (ie. walls, windows, furniture, etc). Instead of giving a bounding line, rendering needs to fill the space with light and shadows to give it definition.
The Perspective:
"I wonder, and have for some time now, where is the best place to take a perspective from? Eye height seems to make the most sense, but it doesn't always show the building as I would like it to. Maybe more from above...
...I close my eyes and try and picture the perspective in my mind.
I just went and scanned through some collections of architectural drawings in the library. All were different in regards to the viewing angle, but this does lead me to an answer of sorts: My perspective has to demonstrate something that the other drawings don't. In this project, I am trying to gain additional "dwelling" space. Therefore, my perspective should show that.
A lower angle, looking through the extended exterior space into the interior.
Also, picking a scene/scenery. It needs to have a location, so it doesn't sit all by itself in a blank field."
"I think I have figured out what the perspective is going to look like. It seems that setting up the fore, middle and back-ground gives the drawing depth and character.
The perspective is now roughed out in pencil. It looks okay, but there is something slightly off about it. I think the perspective of the background might be a bit wrong. I can't quite seem to figure it out."
