Hi – my name is James and over the course of the next 5 sessions I will be introducing you to drawing and design.
This time our topic is drawing. Before we get going I thought I would introduce myself.
Introduction to designing and drawing
Warm-up exercises
OK, now every session before we get stuck into our topic we will spend 5 minutes warming up. Mostly, I will just provide a list of warm up tasks but this time I will take you through it step by step (sorry for the background noise on the recording)
What is ‘good enough’?
So before we go any further I have been teaching drawing and design for well over a decade and I know that students come in with a wide variation in confidence – from students who are much more confident at drawing than I am to others who struggle to make any marks because they are uncomfortable drawing. Don’t worry. Firstly, drawing is a useful skill for engineers, but you don’t have to be an artist. Secondly, to be ‘good enough’ really requires a lot less practice than you might think.
Why should we draw?
Before we go any further I thought I would explain why drawing is important.
Drawing tips and tricks
Now it’s time to grab your pencil and paper and I will give some tips – I suggest you draw along (and you will enjoy all future videos more in the future if you draw as you go – being active is much more beneficial that a passive observer).
Want to find out more?
In each session we will highlight some further resources where you can find out more – these are not essential but if you are interested you might find them interesting.
Book Suggestion
The Exceptionally Simple Theory of Sketching by George Hlavács, BIS Publishers, 2014.
This incredibly short book is fun to read and easy to follow. It will only take 30 mins to read from cover to cover but there are exercises and I learnt lot’s from reading it.
Watch this
https://expeditionworkshed.org/workshed/sketching-chris-wise/ – Chris Wise is a world leading structural engineer and over the course of 6 minutes he explains why he thinks sketching is so important.
Find out more
https://i-want-to-study-engineering.org/
This site will link you in to all sorts of additional resources about engineering more generally.
Time to have a go
In every session there will be an activity to try out. Most won’t be that structured, but for this one I thought we would doing a drawing tutorial. Part one can be done at your desk. Part two should be carried out outside (but be sensible and safe and you can always choose to do it inside if you prefer).
You can download the activity from the link below:
Summer School session 1 activity
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