Jump to content

Is a pad and pencil part of your workflow.


heni30
 Share

Recommended Posts

http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-power-of-the-doodle-improve-your-focus-and-memory-1406675744?mod=trending_now_3

 

I know I'm always making sketches/notes and diagrams calling out materials, etc. It's therapeutic and actually augments the comprehension/problem solving thought processes, I think.

 

In an office I working in a young intern was asked to sketch out some design ideas; he quickly opened Illustrator and began sketching away with his mouse.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder if most people here were prolific artists when they were kids? Like compulsively drawing all the time.

 

I was always in charge of the Thanksgiving mural in grade school but one time I put a jet overhead strafing the celebration - teacher was very perturbed.

Edited by heni30
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hell yes, it's impossible for me to work without piles of scrap paper and a nice soft pencil.

 

I just wish I was better with them: I worked with a 70 year old architect once who could communicate more with 4 or 5 pencil lines than I've ever seen before. We produced a very technical $30 million building from a single sketch of his - just like that, a dozen lines and a squiggle person for scale and his work was done! It's a genius that is gradually and sadly dying from our practices.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sketching for artistry is one thing and a valuable skill I think, but more than that, planning out designs, models, scripts, anything is a key component to getting things right the first time. No amount of knowledge of software will ever be faster than your hand-eye coordination.

 

A well planned image will be completed faster and as we all know, time is money.

 

Your intern likely thinks that he/she knows AI so well that they don't need the pen and paper, but as we all know, there are few better than us at communicating ideas with a computer and likely all of us will tell you that a pen and paper are step one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rarely, though I do have a go at any possible opportunity because I find it to be so theraputic and helpful with conveying thoughts, it's just that the opportunity to sketch hardly ever arises.

 

I'd say I was "okay" at drawing/sketching, but nothing like I've seen some people do. Here's a doodle I did whilst rendering:

 

sketch.jpg

 

Whilst we have a dozen or so architects and lots of architecture students in house, there is one architect at our practice that is able to convey an incredible amount with just a few lines. No fancy shading, no dead straight lines. It always amazes me how he is seemingly able to put so little into his sketches yet pack so much information into them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I used to be so good at drawing, did it whole life, mostly buildings, cityscapes. Now I honestly can't write my own name even. Everything I do with pencil/pen looks like it was given to dog. Sometimes I find it funny sometimes bit sad.

 

I don't think the skill is so essential as people make it to be, it's one of these things stretched into mythical proportions. There are some absurdly talented 3D artists who completely lack the coordination to do it.

I would love to gain the practice back, but so do with many other things, but there is just little time for everything in life. Something also goes/gets lost.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it's important and worthy of mythical proportions because it's one of the primal architypical activities that we indulge in as humans.

 

Like building a house with your hands as opposed to putting together a modular structure with a crane.

 

There's a classical painting of "the first drawing" which is a woman tracing the shadow of her lover's face profile cast on a wall by a candle, but I like Adolph Loos' take better:

 

"The first ornament that was born, the cross, was erotic in origin. The first work of art, the first artistic act which the first artist, in order to rid himself of his surplus energy, smeared on the wall. A horizontal dash: the prone woman. A vertical dash: the man penetrating her.

 

The man who created it felt the same urge as Beethoven, he was in the same heaven in which Beethoven created the Ninth Symphony."

 

(now you'll look at a catholic cross in a whole new way)

Edited by heni30
Link to comment
Share on other sites

(now you'll look at a catholic cross in a whole new way)

 

Uh ... thanks.

 

Yeah, well, drawing is important but only in the sense that it communicates something. You can just as easily do that with a CG image. However, drawing is paleo, it is old, it is part of what defines us. So it is hard to dismiss, even in the light of more precise methods. The human hand and voice have launched us to who we are. Walk away from these at your peril.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does drawing make me a better 3d artist? Not directly, as I never draw what I am modeling, but I would be lost if I couldn't draw. It is my main form of expression. Whilst I may go for months not picking up a pen or brush, there comes a time when I just have to draw something, even if its just a scribble. Once I start I cant stop, often hours pass with out me realizing. I am exhausted and my head pounds, but I feel great.

 

If I had the guts I'd be drawing full time :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, well, drawing is important but only in the sense that it communicates something.

 

Several people have mentioned the therapeutic aspect; just doing it because it feels good to feed those paleo genes we're carrying around.

Edited by heni30
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder if most people here were prolific artists when they were kids? Like compulsively drawing all the time.

 

I was always in charge of the Thanksgiving mural in grade school but one time I put a jet overhead strafing the celebration - teacher was very perturbed.

 

Always drawing. I had notebooks upon notebooks of doodles. Markers, crayons, pencil. I drew in all of my mom's nursing books. I remember when Bob Ross would come on I would get so excited, run to my room, get my cheap watercolor pans, and begin to paint "happy little things".

 

I hope we are all here because we are artists and not because we are computer geeks. Well, a little geek is ok.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...