Drawing for Designers: Techniques of Expression, Articulation, and Representation

The course is intended as a creative drawing laboratory for designers and an expressive, playful supplement to computer-based labor.

This course will master techniques in hand drawing, refining sensitivity to all details of what one sees and developing capacity to articulate it in a visually convincing and evocative form. The class projects will include work in outdoor and indoor situations and places as well as drawings of live models. In the process of drawing, students will focus on the world of lines, textures, shapes, light, shade, and values. We will use various tools, materials, and artistic techniques including pencils, vine charcoal, markers, ink, and other wet and dry media, later combined with the use of camera, computer renderings, etc.

Throughout the duration of the course, students will complete several larger drawing projects. In addition, a special short assignment will be given at the beginning of each class session. There will be field trips to draw in city interior and exterior places and public settings.

In one nonrepresentational drawing project, students will focus on the formal articulation of emotional life experience. In another project, we will explore the performance of the human body in interaction with elements of the architectural environment. In a final project, students will experiment with the use of wall drawing to visually transform the perception and meaning of specific architectural space.

Work on studio projects will be supplemented by museum visits, presentations, and discussions of relevant examples from art history and contemporary art. Guest artists will be invited as reviewers for the presentation and exhibition of final projects.

For the first class session, please bring soft vine charcoal and a large kneaded eraser.