Dear Gunnar,
Teaching non-design students and para-design students is a challenge because of the limited time for developing drawing skills. (I think we all talk here about free-hand drawing). It is interesting how to teach hand drawing to people who might need it to some degree to express their ideas, but at the same time have to learn many other important things.
In a classic, traditional design curriculum, before students draw comics they need to learn how to draw the human body. They need to know well the proportions of the human body so that when they engage in deformation of the natural proportions, they can communicate particular information and ideas, a character or a trait, etc. Long ago I was thought that in order to be a good abstract painter, a person needs to be an excellent drawer first. It might look quite unnecessary, but there is a sound logic in this.
One of the purposes of drawing balls, buckets, chairs, gypsum ornaments and human busts is to get develop the ability to grasp proportions and to imagine perspective deformations. The nature of line and rendering are also important.
Hand drawing/sketching is a problem in contemporary architectural education. I am appalled by the poor sketching skills of most architecture students. Most students scribble with a ballpoint pen of a piece of notebook paper. No sense of quality of line, no abilities for seeing and expressing proportions, no ability to sketch a simple and quick perspective.
Architecture students take only 25-28 courses in their undergraduate studies. We cannot afford to include 3-5 drawing and modeling/sculpturing courses in the curriculum, paired with technical drawing by hand, construction drawings, and on top of all, computer drawing software. This will take half of the curriculum space.
I am afraid that if we go directly to teach drawing as a means for communiction, it would not be possible. Without developing foundational skills, students would not be able to sketch on a napkin. The whole napkin thing is a myth. A person needs to be an exceptional drawer to be able to communicate well on a napkin. That is probably the fascination and obsession with the napkin phenomenon.
I also see a difference between sketching skills for diagramming and sketching skills for communication with 3D objects (space, bodies, any object in space). While for diagramming it is important to have a "hand" and analytical ability to organize information, 3D communication requires additional abilities for proportions and perspective deformation.
I will personally be happy to hear more about different approaches to teaching quick sketching because this is the current imperative in design: quick sketching of ideas and then going to model on the computer.
Best wishes,
Lubomir
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From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Katherine J Hepworth
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2015 11:32 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: drawing for designers and others
Hey Gunnar
Thanks for starting this thoughtful thread.
I have been considering how best to integrate drawing into design courses for journalism students. One semester, I tried incorporating a drawing stage into several design projects. It was drawing in wireframe and storyboard format, and was not particularly successful. Students didn't seem to 'get' the purpose of the drawing stage in iterative design development, which was probably due to poor instructional design on my part. I have had success with introducing drawing through wireframes as a standalone assignment before. My understanding of this success is that the wireframe assignment makes it clear to students that drawing is practical, and that its related to what they value and understand (the assignment is to draw two wireframes of their favorite website - one representing its current state, and one improved version if the website was optimized just for them).
Considering your goal, two other books come to mind as worthy of consideration - Dan Roam's 'Back of the Napkin', and the 'form creation' section of Ellen Lupton's 'Graphic Design Thinking'. Also considering your goal, have you thought about teaching drawing for UX first, then moving on to creative expression?
Best
Katherine Hepworth
On May 13, 2015, at 7:36 AM, Gunnar Swanson <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Apologies if this strays too far from the subjects of PhD studies and research but an exchange between Keith and Martin about drawing in the " How to teach argument ability to design students?" thread brings to mind some questions I am dealing with.
Now that my spring semester is over, I can begin obsessing about the next one. This coming fall I am going to teach a basic drawing class for the first time. It is one of our "foundations" classes taken by all students in the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art program here at East Carolina University before they start media- or subject-specific work. This includes students who will have concentrations in graphic design, animation/interactive design, filmmaking, and photography (of the fine art variety) in addition to a range of art and craft areas.
Many of the students in the areas I listed currently feel ill served by our foundations program (which is generally run by people with a traditional fine art and craft background.) The basic drawing class tends to start out with perspective, drawing some cubes, and then goes on to a bunch of observational drawing--stools, ladder back chairs, and pumpkins seem to dominate the work--concentrating on line quality. The main purpose of the class seems to be to foster the sort of drawing skills that make artists say that someone draws well.
I am not specifically dismissing traditional art drawing skills, by the way. Beautiful rendering is like eloquent prose. It is convincing, can help promote clear understanding, and has intrinsic value. I just don't believe that these skills are the first thing a group of eighteen year olds wanting a career in art and design should deal with. Also, too many of them see drawing class as a barrier to be breached before getting on with what they want to do rather than as a tool for doing what they want to do. (I think that our current approach could be greatly improved upon for people who want an art career but the deficiencies for designers and filmmakers are the most obvious problems.)
My goal for the class is to promote drawing for communication of ideas. This includes communicating with others such as collaborators, clients, and other stakeholders--especially concentrating on bringing others into the creative process--and communicating with oneself--for understanding plans but especially in formal idea generation processes.
I am seeking any comments on the subject whether broadly philosophical or concrete and specific (including examples of assignments that have been successful in the teaching of specific aspects of seeing and thinking.) If your comments don't seem to be of interest to the list (or if you think this entire subject is too off-topic), please email me off list at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.
(In case anyone is interested, my current thought is that I will start with having them do measured drawings of an object--plan and elevation views, then orthographic versions--followed by perspective drawings. Then much of the class will be drawing quickly from imagination especially in aid of developing and expanding a visual vocabulary for a subject that can allow the combination of vocabulary items in different ways. (By drawing, I mean pencils, pens, and paper including a lot of tracing paper.) Then we'll deal with time and narrative--like comics or story boards--maybe turning those drawings into animatics. The textbook for the class will be Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics." Like I said, all comments and suggestions are welcome.)
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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