LOOKING AND SEEING THROUGH DRAWING:
MODERN SKETCHBOOK PRACTICE
The practice of looking is as important as the practice of
designing. The sketchbook allows the looking to become
more critical – the image produced by drawing heightens
awareness of the subject and offers a greater range of
potential to the designer. Freehand sketching is a way of
recording subjects in a more rigorous way than simply
photographing them, thereby helping to cultivate visual
memory and critical judgement. Looking is a precondition
to exploring subjects beneath the surface, and this is
further developed by sketching. Hence, there is a linear
progression between looking, sketching, drawing and
designing. A distinction is made here between sketching
in the field, drawing in the studio, and rationalising one’s
thoughts through design.
In architecture and design schools drawing studies
form the core of the curriculum. However, drawing tuition
is expensive and demanding of studio space with the
result that much of the teaching of drawing is
concentrated in the early (often foundation) years. As a
result many students fail to carry on exploring through
freehand drawing, preferring to use CAD or technical
drawing in their senior college years. The need to equip
students with the tools necessary for industry and
professional design practice adds to the pressure to
abandon freehand drawing. Computer-assisted drawing
does not necessarily undermine the craft of traditional
drawing as long as creativity and presentation skills have
previously been learnt by more orthodox methods.
Sketchbooks are seen by many students as a form of
visual diary. They tend to resemble notebooks with their
collections of images rather more than traditional hand-
drawn sketchbooks. Modern sketchbook drawings are
both the construction of images and the recording of
objects. Construction suggests a deeper level of inquiry
than mere record-making. Modern sketchbooks tend,
therefore, to contain four main types of visual material –
the sketch as record, the sketch as re-construction,
sketches augmented by photographs or digital images,
and finally, abstract or analytical drawings. The
combination of drawing types makes the sketchbook an
important pedagogic tool, whilst also enhancing the level
of critical viewing. In this sense there is a direct
relationship between the sketch and looking, and by
extension with the development of visual and design
skills.
The trend in art, design and architectural education is
to ‘integrate’ drawing with projects. Stand-alone drawing
classes tend not to occur beyond the foundation years.
The main difficulty with the concept of integration is how
to develop drawing skills in parallel with project ones. The
task of design tends to become dominant over that of
drawing and increasingly, to fill the gap, students and
design professionals rely upon computer-based drawing
packages (Schenk 1998). This further distances the
student from learning through drawing or matching the
complexity of design projects with equally complex
modes of traditional drawing techniques. Also, since
drawing is the means whereby there can be a marriage of
art and architecture, to neglect freehand sketching is to
undermine the alliance of art, sculpture and architecture
upon which the twenty-first century seems increasingly
reliant.DRAWING AS COMMUNICATION
Drawings are a designer’s way of writing: they are a
means both of communication and of problem solving.
For many architects there is not a clear distinction
between drawings, words and symbols (Lawson 1980
p173). All contribute towards the evolution of a design
whether in plan, section or elevation. The shapes onWhy draw? 27