Introduction
Drawing is the process or technique of representing something—an object, a scene, or an idea—by making lines on a surface. This definition infers that delineation is different from painting and the coloring of surfaces. While drawing is generally linear in nature, it may include other pictorial elements, such as dots and brush strokes, which can also be interpreted as lines. Whatever form a drawing takes, it is the principal means by which we organize and express our visual thoughts and perceptions. We therefore regard drawing not only as artistic expression but also as a practical tool for formulating and working through design problems.
The term design drawing brings to mind the presentation drawings used to persuade the viewer of the merits of a design proposal. Also familiar are the construction or working drawings that provide graphic instructions for the production or building of a project. But designers use both the process and products of drawing in other ways as well. In design, the role of drawing expands to include recording what exists, working out ideas, and speculating and planning for the future. Throughout the design process, we use drawing to guide the development of an idea from concept to proposal to constructed reality.
In order to learn how to draw and to use drawing effectively as an instrument in design, it is necessary to acquire certain fundamental skills, such as inscribing lines and laying down tonal values. Over time and with enough practice, anyone can learn these techniques. Skillful technique is of little value, however, unless accompanied by understanding the perceptual principles on which these techniques are based. Even as digital drawing tools evolve and augment traditional drawing methods, enabling us to transfer ideas onto the computer screen and develop them into three-dimensional models, drawing remains a cognitive process that involves perceptive seeing and visual thinking.
The act of seeing is a dynamic and creative process. It is capable of delivering a stable, three-dimensional perception of the moving, changing images that make up our visual world. There are three phases in the swift and sophisticated processing that results in the images we see:
Seeing is a vigorous, pattern-seeking process. The mind’s eye uses the input extracted from the retinal image as the basis for making educated guesses about what we encounter. Inference is easy for the mind. The mind’s eye actively seeks those features that fit our image of the world. It looks for closure—for meaning and understanding in the patterns it receives. We are able to form images from the barest scaffolding of visual data, filling out the images if necessary with information that is not really there. For example, we may not understand this incomplete pattern of lights and darks, but once recognized, it cannot not be seen.
Visual perception thus is a creation of the mind’s eye. The eye is blind to what the mind does not see. The picture in our head is not only based on input extracted from the retinal image but is also shaped by our interests and the knowledge and experiences each of us brings to the act of seeing. Our cultural environment also modifies our perceptions and teaches us how to interpret the visual phenomena we experience.
The drawing of things we see before us, including the careful copying of a master’s work, has traditionally been fundamental training for artists and designers. Drawing from observation is the classic method for developing eye-mind-hand coordination. Experiencing and examining the visible world in a direct manner through drawing makes us more conscious of the dynamics of sight. This understanding, in turn, helps us to draw.
We normally do not see all that we are capable of seeing. Preconceived notions of what we expect or believe to be out there usually direct our seeing. Through familiarity, we tend to pass over things we confront and use every day without really seeing them. These perceptual prejudices make our life simpler and safer. We do not have to pay full attention to each and every visual stimulus as if seeing it for the first time each day. Instead we can select out only those that provide information pertinent to our momentary needs. This expeditious kind of seeing leads to our common use of stereotypical images and visual clichés.
The labeling of visual stereotypes, while necessary to avoid perceptual chaos, can also prevent us from looking anew at what we see as familiar. The visual environment is usually fuller and richer than what we normally perceive at a glance. In order to make full use of our visual faculty—to see more than symbols—we must learn to see things as if we were going to draw them.
Drawing encourages us to pay attention and to experience the full range of visual phenomena and appreciate the uniqueness of the most ordinary things. In fostering a heightened and critical awareness of the visual environment, drawing also nurtures understanding and improves our visual memory. In drawing from the imagination, we recall past perceptions and draw on these memories.
Our perception is not limited to what we can see in the here and now. Images often appear spontaneously in response to a sensory perception—something seen, touched, or smelled. Even without any sort of sensory stimulation, we have the mental faculty of recalling or recreating images. Easily, almost effortlessly, you can imagine something as soon as it is suggested to you. As you read these words, you can easily visualize:
In responding to all of these verbal prompts, we are picturing with the mind’s eye. We are thinking visually.
Visual thinking—thinking in images—pervades all human activity. It is an essential part of everyday life. We think in visual terms when we drive down a street looking for an address, set the table for a dinner party, or contemplate a move in a game of chess. Our thought has visual form when we search for constellations in the night sky, build a cabinet from a set of drawings, or design a building. In each of these activities, we actively seek to match the images we see with the images we hold in the mind’s eye.
The images in our head are not limited to what we see in the present. The mind is capable of forming, exploring, and recombining images beyond the normal bounds of time and space. With hindsight we visualize memories of things, places, and events from the past. With foresight, we are also able to look forward in time—to use our imagination to envision a possible future. Imagination therefore enables us to have both a sense of history as well as a plan for the future. It establishes connections—visual bridges—between the past, present, and future.
The images we conjure up in the mind’s eye are often hazy, brief, and all too elusive. Even if vivid and clear, they can come to mind and just as suddenly disappear. Unless captured in a drawing, they can easily be lost in awareness and replaced by others in the stream of consciousness. Drawing thus is a natural and necessary extension of visual thought. As the mental picture guides the movement of our eyes and hand on paper, the emerging drawing simultaneously tempers the image in our head. Further thoughts come to mind and are integrated into the process of imagining and drawing.
Drawing is a medium that influences thought just as thought directs drawing. Sketching an idea on paper enables us to explore and clarify it in much the same way as we can form and order a thought by putting it into words. Making thoughts concrete and visible enables us to act on them. We can analyze them, see them in a new light, combine them in new ways, and transform them into new ideas. Used in this way, design drawings further stimulate the imagination from which they spring.
This type of drawing is essential to the initial and developmental phases of the design process. An artist contemplating various compositions for a painting, a choreographer orchestrating a dance sequence for the stage, and an architect organizing the spatial complexities of a building—all use drawings in this exploratory way to imagine possibilities and speculate on the future.
A drawing can never reproduce reality; it can only make visible our perceptions of that outer reality and the inner visions of the mind’s eye. In the process of drawing, we create a separate reality, which parallels our experiences.
Our perceptions are holistic, incorporating all the information we possess about the phenomena we experience. A single drawing, however, can only express a limited portion of our experience. In drawing from observation, we direct our attention to particular aspects of our vision and we choose either consciously or unconsciously to ignore others. The choice of medium and technique we elect to use also affects what we are able to convey in a drawing.
We can also draw what we know about a subject, which can be expressed in ways other than how it appears to the eye. In drawing from the imagination, for example, we are not limited to the perceptual views of optical reality. We can draw instead a conceptual view of what the mind sees. Both perceptual and conceptual views are legitimate means of representation. They represent complementary ways of seeing and drawing. The choice of one over the other depends on the purpose of the drawing and what we want to communicate of the subject.
All drawings communicate to the extent they stimulate an awareness on the part of those who view them. Drawings must catch the eye before they can communicate or instruct. Once they engage the viewer, they should assist their imagination and invite a response.
Drawings are by nature information-rich. It would be difficult to adequately describe with words what a drawing is able to reveal at a glance. But just as we each see in a different way, we can each view the same drawing and interpret it differently. Even the most realistic drawing is subject to interpretation. Any drawing we use to communicate visual information should therefore represent things in a way that is comprehensible to others. The more abstract a drawing, the more it must rely on conventions and text to communicate a message or convey information.
A common form of visual communication is the diagram, a simplified drawing that can illustrate a process or action, clarify a set of relationships, or describe a pattern of change or growth. Another example is the set of presentation drawings that offer a design proposal to others for their review and evaluation. More utilitarian forms of graphic communication include design patterns, working drawings, and technical illustrations. These visual instructions guide others in the construction of a design or the transformation of an idea into reality.
While we are able to read drawings we do not author or which we are incapable of executing, the converse is not true. We cannot construct a drawing unless we are able to decipher the graphic marks we make and understand the way others might see and interpret them. An essential part of learning how to draw is learning to read the drawings we encounter as well as the ones we execute ourselves.
Being able to read a drawing means that we understand the relationship between a subject and how it is represented in a drawing. For example, any drawing, whether generated on a computer screen or created by hand, can be improperly constructed and misconstrue the three-dimensional idea that it represents. We should be able to recognize when a drawing conveys something that is not possible in reality, even though the graphic image may give the opposite impression.
To better critique and improve our own drawings, we should cultivate the habit of reading them the way others might see them. It is easy to convince our eyes that a drawing that we have done actually stands for what we believe it represents. It is just as easy to see mistakes in another’s drawing because we see it with fresh eyes. Looking at a drawing upside down, from a distance, or through a mirror, causes us to see it in a new way. The sudden changes of view enable us to see problems we were predisposed by our mind to ignore. Even small errors that appear to be trivial are of some consequence if they muddy the message or meaning of a drawing.
