Sketchbooks...A Small Portfolio

Sketchbooks. We all have them and use them. And if we don't, we should, right? But we don't and that is unfortunate because they were, and remain, the most immediate, descriptive and romantic means of expression and exploration in any architects' or designers' graphic vocabulary. Unlike the more elemental forms of architectural graphics, both digital and manual, it is rare today to find some means of instruction (beyond basic, generic drawing classes) in the importance and relevance of sketchbook drawing as part of an on-going design process. Architectural schools used to firstly lead the student to believe that architecture was properly to be practiced by those who had a talent for drawing pictures or, perhaps more properly, plans, sections and elevations. Secondly, it lead students to believe that the basis of their education should embrace to some degree an acquired familiarity with classical forms and building technologies and training in "design", and finally an understanding of the principles (unfortunately not always the details,) of construction.

Sketchbook Design Concept Drawing - Pencil and Ink on Canson Sketchbook Paper with Prisma-

color Pencil Washes. Original image size is 11"w. x 14" h. Constructed as free hand drawing in ink

over hardline pencil set-up.

However, mere facility in drawing (or in this case, drafting) without imagination, the ability to conceive forms, and the confidence to carry them out, will not always produce an original or real work of architecture. It used to be a fact that in rare instances original and vibrant works of architecture and design were produced by those who had little or no aptitude for drawing; these might once have been "the exceptions that proved the rule". Even as recently as 20 years ago, many architects were as recognizable by their style of drawing as they were by their actual buildings. But now that representation in architecture is almost entirely digital, what was once the exception is now entirely the rule. Ideas are always the essence of any design project; the ability to explain them in their formative stage by skillful use of pencil, pen and paper, especially in a sketchbook, was and remains a valuable and absolutely necessary accomplishment. The language of the day, it least in terms of sketchbook drawing and exploration was "be yourself". Imitate those you admire to gain technique and understanding. When it comes to the process of creation, honestly all you really have to draw on is yourself and your own abilities. By embracing your own individual view of the world you pursue the best possible route by which you can  make a drawing or a building a fresh and original creation. Regardless of whether you embrace precedent.    



Sketchbook Design Concept Drawing for Public Library - Pencil and Ink on Canson Sketchbook Paper with

Prismacolor Pencil Washes. Original image size is 14"w. x 11"h. Constructed free hand in ink over hardline pencil setup.

The cultivation and development of the faculty of observation through drawing is, I believe, one of the great essentials of design and should be a formative aspect in both education and practice. If you observe or explore with a pencil in your hand, you really see and understand  the reason for specific things into the plan or the most elemental forms of design.

 

The habit of unrestrained drawing is a habit of immense value, as a means of developing your powers of observation, of refining your own graphic vocabulary and techniques, and of expanding your own horizons in the realm of what is possible. Much of what is normal in one's own beginning work experiences is the expression of someone else's ideas.   



Sketchbook Precedent Study Drawing of Trinity Church Rectory Building by H.H. Richardson in Boston, MA. Drawn in Pencil and Ink on Canson Sketchbook Paper and rendered with Prismacolor and graphite pencil washes. Original image size is 9"w. x 6-1/2"h. Constructed entirely as a free hand drawing with no hardline base.

First Concept Sketchbook Drawing of Residence in Vermont - Pencil and Ink on Canson Sketchbook Paper with graphite pencil washes. Original image size is 11"w. x 11"h. Drawn in ink over hard line pencil setup.

 

Sketchbook Concept Drawing for Pole Barn - Study for both typology of building type and graphic vocabulary for presentation drawings. Pencil and ink on Canson sketchbook paper with graphite pencil washes. Original image size is approximately 20"w. x 14" h. 

First Conceptual Sketchbook Drawing for Residence in New Hampshire. Pencil and Ink on Canson Sketchbook Paper with Prismacolor pencil washes. Original image size is 5-1/2"w. x 8-1/2"h. Constructed entirely as a freehand drawing with no hardline layout.



First Conceptual Sketchbook Drawing for Residence in New Hampshire. Pencil and Ink on Canson Sketchbook Paper with Prismacolor pencil washes. Original image size is 8-1/2"w. x 5-1/2"h. Constructed entirely as a freehand drawing with no hardline layout.



First Conceptual Sketchbook Drawing for Residence in Memphis, TN. Pencil and Ink on Canson Sketchbook Paper with Prismacolor pencil washes. Original image size is 11"w. x 8-1/2"h. Constructed entirely as a freehand drawing with no hardline layout.

One last point about sketchbooks...if you're like me your sketchbook, or books, themselves become an on-going work of art. Kind of a graphic journal of where you've been and where you are going and how you think, create and develop ideas. And you naturally want to keep them whole. So, you think, here you have a problem. Because sometimes the best (or most immediately acceptable) means of distributing or presenting your image is with a desktop (flat bed) scanner. Which means that you often have to cut your drawing out of your sketchbook so you can close the platen and get the best possible scan. I know, I know. heresy, right? All I can tell you is try to get over it. If the drawing is really worth digital reproduction and presentation sometimes you have to sacrifice the sanctity of your sketchbook for the greater good. There are no hard and fast rules here. Sometimes you don't need a high quality scan. Or an iPhone jpeg is quality enough (see above). When it's possible to keep your sketchbook whole, by all means do so. But be ready to neatly cut or otherwise remove you drawing for digital reproduction. There are always additional refinements you bring to any drawing

First Conceptual Sketchbook Drawing for Residence in Massachusetts. Pencil and Ink on Canson Sketchbook Paper with Prismacolor pencil washes. Original image size is 11"w. x 8-1/2"h. Constructed entirely as a freehand drawing with no hardline layout.



Sketchbook study drawing for larger rendering of NYC. Pencil and Ink on Canson Sketchbook Paper with Prismacolor pencil washes. Original image size is 11"w. x 8-1/2"h. Constructed entirely as a freehand drawing with no hardline layout.

First Conceptual Sketchbook Study for Mixed-use building in New York City. Ink on Canson Sketchbook Paper. Original image sixe is 11"w. x 14"h.

Color Working Drawings...

 

Sounds a little weird, right? But technology always catches up. In this case we have a major exterior remodeling project in Gloucester, Massachusetts. There was an accelerated project schedule and a client with a somewhat limited budget in terms of design fees and, more importantly, printing costs. When drawings are produced using AutoCAD and Revit, the reimbursable (printing) costs can often exceed the design fees for the work itself. So here what was attempted was to develop the design and the construction drawings as a single set of documents for the entire project. Design exploration and presentation, owner review, municipal review and approval, bidding and (pending) construction were all accomplished with a single set of hand drawings.

 

 

There are actually times, especially with smaller, more historically driven residential projects, where it can less expensive both for you and your client to develop your drawings by hand. If file sharing is not a major issue (i.e.; there is minimal consultant involvement) it can also be a speedier, more economical and much more elegant way to present your design concept without the creepy verisimilitude that is part and parcel of so many digital renderings and presentation drawings. 

 

I know, I know, you're thinking that can't possibly be true. Even I, by virtue of being highly literate in a digital sense, spent time while I was doing these drawings thinking "mirror" or "copy" or "array" or "hatch". But the payback here is in giving your client something that is truly "hand crafted", like the project itself, in the most literal sense of the word. And the inherent speed of AutoCAD or Revit is lost when measured against the time required to rendered the drawings in their early (or later) stages.

 

 

 

 

But color working drawings? Well, why not? The obstacle for many offices (and students, small practitioners and clients) has always been the costs involved in drawing reproduction by means of scanning and printing. And that is where digital scanning and printing technology has finally caught up with, and made very affordable, the reproduction of full size, large format color drawings. Go to Staples. Again, go...to...Staples. You can now scan a color drawing at any size for a mere two dollars. And print any color drawing at another two dollars per square foot. And once you have a high quality color scan you can print them as Xerox images for mere peanuts. That's what I did with the drawings. Everybody got a color set and then screened, grey-tone, black and white sets were printed for the more pedestrian uses needed to both bid and build the project. As each drawing is 24" wide by 18" high, it cost six dollars to print each drawing, or thirty six dollars per set, which is under the normal printing costs for basic CAD plotting at most of the firms I have worked.

 

All of the elevation drawings were drawn at 3/8" equals 1'-0". The use of larger scales in drawing is very useful for projects which are historically or traditionally motivated, projects which by their very nature are profile and proportion driven and where appropriate use of line weight are so critical to the overall success of the design vocabulary and drawing aesthetic. The detail drawings were developed at 3/4" equals 1'-0". All of the images here were drawn on heavy white tracing paper in pencil and Micron ink pens and rendered on both sides of the paper with Prismacolor pencils, Sharpie pens and ChartPak AD markers. As I have mentioned many times here, you have to use both sides o the tracing paper to get the necessary effects of color layering, filtering and screening, especially when you are going to scan the drawings. Each drawing is taped to a corresponding backup layer of bond paper prior to scanning, both as a means of protecting the drawing as well as highlighting and controlling the color effects you have created.

 

It is the detail drawings, and the elevations, where I think the advantages of hand drawing become most apparent. Let me be unequivocal here. AutoCAD and Revit drawings look like shit about 95 percent of the time. There are a lot of reasons for this, many of which I have bitched about before on this blog. First and foremost is the fact that very little emphasis is placed on drawing by hand in the climate of today's architectural education. However, when good digital drawings, especially working drawings, happen it's because the person who is doing the drawings has acquired along the way the ability to do beautiful drawings by hand and can bring those thought processes  and graphic skills to digital drafting exercises at all times.