Sharing a couple of views of Morocco. The first is a small court in the médina of Tangier. The second is a view from the rooftop of Riad Kettani, where we are staying in the médina of Fès. Entering médinas, especially the one in Fès, is like walking into new worlds.
Spending a few days with friends in Lisbon before heading to Morocco. Here are a couple of views from the Alfama district.
Whenever we do a drawing or sketch, we typically intend to do our very best, even if the results do not always match our expectations. Like a conversation, the drawing process can sometimes lead in a direction we could not foresee when we started. As it evolves on paper, a sketch can take on a life of its own and we should be open to the possibilities the emerging image suggests. This is part of the thrill of drawing—to work with the image on a journey of discovery.
So a strange thought came to mind—is it possible, in a conscious, deliberate manner, to do a “bad” drawing? Have you ever considered doing a “bad” drawing from the outset? I personally think this would be a very difficult thing to do.
The heart of sumi-e style paintings is their negative spaces, which viewers can fill in according to their imagination. Here are a few sketches attempting to make use of the same principle.
“We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing
that the utility of the wheel depends.
We turn clay to make a vessel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing
that the utility of the vessel depends.
We pierce doors and windows to make a house;
and it is on these spaces where there is nothing
that the utility of the house depends.
Therefore, just as we take advantage of what is,
we should recognize the utility of what is not.”
Lao-tzu
Tao Te Ching
6th century BC
A related Japanese aesthetic concept is MA, the essential emptiness that surrounds all things. Think of the spaces necessary to form words from a sequence of letters, or the silences that make the music from a sequence of notes.
This is the original lobby of the Seattle Art Museum, designed by Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates in 1991, before the museum was expanded in 2006 in a design by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture. A grand staircase traverses the rise from First to Second Avenues, mirrored on the outside with a similar set of stairs.
For comparison, below is the same view from 6 years ago, showing how I struggled with the issues of proportion and scale.
Taking a break from drawing on location, I am sharing two pages from Drawing: A Creative Process, a book I wrote and illustrated in 1990. I am referencing here drawing as a means of making thoughts and ideas visible, which is pertinent to the use of hand drawing in the design process. The discussion is not so much about technique as it is about the attitude with which one draws.
Stoup, a word that originally referred to a flagon or beaker for drink, is the name of a small craft brewery in the heart of the Ballard Brewing District, just a few blocks away from Reuben’s Brews. Founded by Brad Benson, Lara Zahaba, and Certified Cicerone Robyn Schumacher, the brewery is housed in an industrial metal building, which you can see in the view above, just before it began to rain. I used the rain as an excuse to then go inside and savor a Citra IPA while I drew the interior view below.
A quote from the Irish Literary Times: “Punctuation creates sense, clarity, and stress in sentences. It structures and organizes your writing.” I wonder if there is an equivalent element or principle in drawing that would also serve to create “sense, clarity, and stress” and organize the composition of a drawing.
Sense = Meaning; Clarity = Sharpness; Stress = Focus
Back in 2012, I had posted a few examples of how I used contrasting tonal values to define form and draw attention to a particular area in a sketch. In this post, I want to expand on the idea of contrast—the discernible distinctions in line weight, tonal values, textures, details, and even relative position on a page—that is essential to avoiding blandness and giving life to a drawing. Here are examples of the different kinds of contrast at our disposal. Note how the visual tension between the two contrasting elements or areas contribute to the composition of a drawing.
