SPACE IN TEXT

The processes that artists use are a matter of curiosity, for whilst one might assume that there are certain set ways of doing things, this becomes less and less clear the further you look.

We architects draw in a very broad variety of ways. Much of our drawing is done on the computer, with a mouse, keyboard and large monitor (with sometimes a laptop as well). Architects use all kinds of different programmes, many based on engineering software, and increasingly some based on Building Information Modelling (BIM). At DE, we specifically use Vectorworks, for it’s graphic advantages, and Macs, for their other benefits. We also use SketchUp too. It is this software in particular has genuinely eroded the tendency for hand sketches at the beginning of a project, and often with good reason (see the post below called living the dream for a link).

This said, hand drawing is often necessary, for sketching or line work, or where the computer just isn’t sufficiently quick, or fuzzy enough. This can be at any stage in the architectural process. The traditional process of pencil/ ink/ colour died out some years ago (perhaps with the last recession killing off most firms’ ability to manage this kind of frankly quite decadent process). The popular image of the office with a crowd of youngish technicians drafting perfect corners with Rotring pens and others scratching out (nostalgia alert!) has long gone.

Now, if we draw by hand, then it is usually straight into ink. Rotrings are out (too high maintenance), feltpens are in. We may go, if we are lucky enough, from first draft to final image in one shot (that is why we draw in ink). We do not draw directly from reference material, or at least we shouldn’t, unless it is to include specific components. Some practices (who will remain nameless) issue pens and directives on how and what to use them on to staff. Paper is a less of an issue: with less paper being physically used, as long as something will scan, it doesn’t matter what it is drawn on (- or weirdly, what colour it is drawn in). Times change.

At stages, the hand drawing finds it’s way back onto the computer again, for photoshopping, for emailing and so on, so the drawing process often/ always a hybrid of hand and computer work. You could forecast that all the work will become digital in the near future, and that may be possible, but, given educational tendencies, it seems the opposite is likely. There is a backlash against computer work in the Schools of Architecture, perhaps as a response to the homogenisation of the images students were producing (critics hate walking into a room full of bendy slick visualisations, and it happens often). Now more and more students are being encouraged to draw by hand again, and are liking it.

With the drawings we make, there are ways of mentally building up the drawing, for example, I imagine I’m actually constructing with my hands the thing I’m drawing together as I put the ink on the page. That seems to be nearly the only way of getting the image right in one shot, for me at least. If you work on large projects you have to be good at one shot drawings as you do not have time to linger- there are too many decisions to make. I also use a kind of strip cartoon format, with a single page telling a story, with a number of interlinked boxes/ images. This is just me. Different people have different points of view on how drawings should fit together on a project and how you use text and so on. We discuss these matters at work very often.

There are a therefore wide variety of drawing practices (and I’m talking about the hand drawing component here: bring in computers and there is a whole different thing going on). Ways of drawing are often subject to the age (not so much experience) of the person doing the drawing and the size of projects worked on and the person being communicated with. Even small things: how do you write 8? Those who were stencillers in their youth (i.e. were working at a junior level before about 1992) will probably still write out oo as opposed to the more conventional infinity symbol), for example.

So, revelation of techniques is a matter of great curiosity and often education. From one discipline to another, it would seem that drawing does not take place in the same way. This blog contains quite a bit of comics imagery and I’ve been thinking a bit about that kind of work.  Architects can certainly learn from looking at other people’s techniques.

I had always assumed that illustrators were so on top of anatomy that they did not use reference material, as this would compromise the composition. This is not so, it would seem, where even the best do use photographs. Sean Phillips describes his blog thus:

Every working day I’ll post an example of what I’ve been working on that day. a favourite panel or cover or sometimes a whole page of comics.

Through this kind of exposure (and there is a link to this blog under the cut, above), we can see the practice of making the work and how the composition is developed. Not everyone will put out their work in this way, so I’m grateful to Sean for clarifying how some of the magic is made and letting us see how his stories are built up.

There are always a lot of questions, but hopefully here, some of them will be answered.

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