Performing Drawology Workshop: Year 1 BArch 11.02.16

Today I ran the Performing Drawology workshop with the first year architecture students. I decided to use the workshop as a means of emphasising the stages of creating a technical drawing, but with a more abstract/creative approach.  I therefore asked the first group of students to create construction lines using pencil with rulers, the second group responded to the pencil grid created by tracing over some of the lines and adding additional ones in thin black pen, the third group added line weights using a variety of black pens of different thicknesses and the final group added shading/hatching.  The final group were also asked if they wanted to add one colour.  They chose the colour red. As we only had one red pen, this was passed around the group and used to add highlights of red to the drawing.

Throughout the workshop, the students were asked to swap seats with other students so that they worked on different areas of the drawing. The students enjoyed chatting to the other students whilst drawing.

We were pleased with the final drawing, which was an architectural response to the Performing Drawology exhibition. The most successful parts of the drawing were where it was evident that the students had responded to one another’s work – parts of the drawing had a strong sense of space and perspective, and could have been turned into design drawing or concept images.

Some of the students found it difficult/did not want to follow the rules.  One student decided to draw around his hand, however I think that this ‘accidental’ occurrence added further meaning and layers to the drawing.

I also think that the first group felt that they missed out a little as they didn’t get to respond to another groups work and were restricted to drawing in pencil with a ruler.  However, they did comment that they found it fascinating to see how the drawing had progressed over the course of the workshop.

Holly Mills, Senior Lecturer at NTU