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The question was posed at my last thesis meeting, how would you advertise your thesis in the real world. After thinking about it for quite a while, I boiled my thesis down to very simple terms. On the base level, my thesis is a guide on how to draw architecture. From that I went looking around for advertisements that were along those lines, and I found this:
I thought it was a great example of the ads that used to be in the back of comic books and other, similar publications.
More of the vintage ads here:
http://www.drawger.com/loubrooks/?section=gallery&gallery_id=564&
Here is the last of the sketches from previous weeks. What I will be posting from now on will be one sketch a week as I do them. This sketch is from Langdon Hall in Cambridge, Ontario. I decided to take the view from further away, to allow me to include more of the surrounding area. To set the scene, as it were. Also, the longer distance gave me the opportunity to skip over a lot of the finer detail. In my opinion, this is the first successful "sketch" that I have completed for this class. I must remember, in the future, to scale the sketch appropriately to the subject being drawn as well as the medium that I am using. With the fountain pen that I have been using, this seems to be the way to do it. I may try to use the ball-point pen that the professor has been promoting. Which, I have a feeling, will take time to get used to.
This is the next sketch from Cruickston Park. As you can see, there is more progress made on level of detail and, as a result, the number of lines. I chose something on a smaller scale and left much of the detail to the imagination. I hinted at grass around the paving stones with a few simple lines. The bricks that make up the wall gestural, but the viewer understands what is going on.
This sketch seems to have fallen apart when I tried to fill in the background. With so many objects and the field of depth, I tried to include as much as I could to fill in the scene. I am beginning to wonder if my choice of viewing position is having an effect on the level of detail I think is required. When picking a scene to draw, I need to be more careful with what I am including. Currently, I am including everything I see, which has been my problem. I don't need to include every detail of what is in front of me, only the important portions. I can hint at what else is there, but I don't need to draw every line to get that across. Enough to give the impression of what I am sketching.
I have been have a conversation with various people about the sketches. What makes sketch, what make a successful one, etc. In this conversation the topic of lines came up. The amount of lines used seem to be a deciding factor in the idea of a sketch. Accomplishing a drawing with minimal lines. Conveying enough information to get the subject across with turning it into a drawing. I went and looked at a few artists sketchbooks as a result. I have four more coming into the library in a few days, but I thought I would start with David Hockney, who was suggested to me as an example of the minimal sketch.
The above sketch is entitled "Celia Sleeping" from 1972. The simplicity of the sketch amazes me. From the expression on the woman's face to the bedding hanging off the bed, Hockney has managed to capture an entire scene with only a few well placed lines.Below is the next sketch I had completed from my sketching class. I will be posting all my sketches as they are finished, but over the next few days I will be posting all the ones to date. 
As you can see, there is a difference in the line content and amount of detail included. I feel like I am starting to get a handle on that aspect. There is still a ways to go yet. I find it difficult to exclude much of the detail that I can see. I normally end up doing portions of a building or the entire building from much farther away. Just so I can omit details in good conscience. I need to learn to pick what is important and only draw those lines.
Here is the first sketch from the class I mentioned in the last post. This, to me, is more of a drawing then a sketch. There is a difference between the two, but I am not looking for definitions of each. Just acknowledge that there is a difference and to figure out the uses and advantages of each.
This sketch borders on a drawing. The level of detail and amount of work put into it pushes it beyond sketch. A sketch should be simple. It is meant to concisely convey some aspect of the subject. That aspect is why you decided to sketch it in the first place. You saw something you wanted to record. Whether it be a detail you want to remember, a scene that caught your eye or just the fact that you were there. I will be writing about the sketching more in the coming weeks and posting one of the sketches I do from every class.
Yesterday was the first day of the sketching course that I am taking and the Professor, Hugh Thompson, said something that I had been thinking about for a while. We were discussing sketching building in some sort of landscape and two people came up; Bonington and Railton, both of who are accomplished Draughtsmen and artists.
While looking at some of their work, Hugh mentioned the preference for lowering the horizon to bring the view point more of a human scale. It is that which started me thinking. When creating a perspective, be it a sketch or a finished drawing, from where should it be taken? I understand the decision to create sketches from a human position, it makes sense. You draw what you see before you. It makes the drawing more believable to the human eye. This seems to hold true to what I have observed in previous drawings. Viewing the building so that there is some relationship between what is being viewed and what the viewer can relate to, the objects they see on a daily basis. It lends familiarity to the subject being drawn, and as a result, the drawer can be less accurate or less realistic in the actual representation. The drawing can be simpler if the viewer is presented with spacial relationships they already unsterstand.
Of course that doesn't mean that you shouldn't add the detail or make it less realistic. It just means that when creating a drawing, use how people understand space and buildings to your advantage.
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.
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.
