A recent comment led me to Sketchcast.com, a tool that allows you to draw and record what you’re drawing, with the idea that the visualizations can help you communicate your ideas.

As a designer who is always open to new methods of visualization and communication of ideas, I set up an account and created the following, based on a diagram from How Designers Think.

Pretty neat, eh?

As you noticed, it was difficult to keep my lines straight. While this is due to the mouse being a less than ideal drawing tool, it detracts from the effectiveness of the resulting visualization.

But why wouldn’t I just create a static image to show the result?

Also, since this is essentially a virtual whiteboard, I asked myself why do we use whiteboards? How important it is during design sessions that the participants see the person perform the task of creating the visualization? Or is using a whiteboard about collaboration, rapid visualization, and iteration? I suspect it’s a combination. Watching someone draw does help everyone else see and understand their thought process. But can this work online where the thought process of what is being drawn is already contrived?

Granted, I did not take advantage of the sound recording aspect of Sketchcast. So perhaps if I were explaining something and drawing at the same time, the tool would be more useful.

While it has problems, it’s a notable effort. Makes me wonder if there are any collaborative online whiteboards that let remote groups create ad hoc visualizations and notes. It would be great to record the iterative process and use colors for each participant. Perhaps a such a whiteboard could also address the issue of one person controlling the board.

Our five-day drawing bonanza ended with empathetic form. In our case, that meant drawing our own hand.

As usual, Mark was there to help. And I needed it, as I have a hard time figuring out how to portray the dimensions of shapes such as the hand.

This week was the most fun for me. It was a journey into an aspect of design that I have wanted to do and even tried to do previously, but never felt successful. In a way, this week was much more artistic than the others. Although we were given a sense of how illustration comes into play in the job world with idea creation and rendering of concepts, so it wasn’t purely artistic.

The one great thing Mark did was make it clear that we were all capable of drawing. While others were able to draw better than me, I never felt like I was competing with them, or that their level of achievement mattered. All that mattered was whether I could make my next drawing slightly better than the last. And I think Mark’s manner of teaching really helped me to look at it that way.

My knowledge and confidence definitely increased. And I hope to continue practicing, only looking to improve over my previous version.

Today we drew organic shapes, what Mark referred to as amorphic space. He asked us to start by drawing a sphere within a cube, which was kind of funny because he told some of us yesterday that it was an exercise he did with his undergrads for weeks that drove them crazy.

Was he trying to drive us crazy?

We only had 30 minutes of sphere insanity before pushing forward to mushroom and banana peppers. I was really proud of my mushrooms.

Mark went around an helped everyone individually. So there was varied guidance on cross hatching and contour, both of which I think I could receive some more instruction.

But no time!

We wrapped up by working with Magic Dough (i.e., Play-Doh), creating shapes that we then tried to draw. That was a bit of a stretch for most of us. But we did get to keep the dough.

As has been the case every week of the design fundamental course, each day we are forced to make leaps due to the time constraint. This has been working out so far, even though it always seems like a stretch when presented with the new task.

Today we launched into drawing 3D objects. We first traced a scan of an object. For me, it was a camera. We then had to draw it freehand. And then, of course, rotate it in our minds and draw it from a new perspective.

There was much focus on cylinders because we did not deal with them yesterday and they?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re a little tricky. We all looked to Mark for guidance, which he enthusiastically and skillfully provided.

Blocks and Cylinders

We then had to draw an object that we were to have brought in from home. I brought a rubber ducky, which was all curves. So I abandoned that. Mark said we?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll tackle organic shapes tomorrow. Naturally.

So I shared a classmates?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s plastic picture frame, which proved troublesome for its transparency and angles. Mark came to the rescue, once again.

After learning his insights, I was amazed at what I could draw. I know they?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re just shapes, and not all the good. But I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t get bored trying to make them better. And it seems that with practice I could actually get better. That is something I had not believe before.

When I bought my pencils and markers the other day I also got a small sketch book. I did some practice drawings tonight of my candle holder.

Sketch of Candle Holder

I even used my new warm gray markers. They make me so happy.

Today, we tackled fat space, or cubic space. And the first thing we learned, after being asked to draw a cube, was that 90 percent of the class and likely most of the populous has an unrealistic idea of what a cube looks like on paper. Simply put, what you would likely draw as a cube is impossible.

How Cubes Should Look on Paper

I won?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t get into the history of drawing cubes (it dates back to the 1200s), but I will say that our collective ?¢‚Ǩ?ìimpossible view?¢‚Ǩ¬ù of cubes relies on our conception of a cube, not our actual perception. This means that we apply knowledge of a cube to render it rather than using visual information. If we’re not aware of that, our drawings will suffer. Essentially, an accurate drawing relies on acute perception, not conception.

Intriguing.

Notes

• Conception frames perception (arguable: some say the reverse is true)
• A stick-figure drawing is symbolic, a photograph representational: both are abstract
• Must have some knowledge to draw something, i.e., must have schema and structure
• Doodling is not drawing
• Changing point of view is absolutely critical for a designer

I Prefer Warm Gray

My favorite part was using my new markers. Though I did mix it up with pencil, because I forgot to buy a 30% gray marker yesterday. I remedied that after class, when I bought a 30% warm gray and 50% warm gray (below is 50% cool gray) because I think warm looks better.

Shaded Planes

(Yesterday?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s homework assignment never saw the light of day. Thank god.)

I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t recall ever being able to draw well. Last year I started reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I enjoyed the reading and psychology part, but I found the drawing part rather laborious and other things began sucking up my time until I stopped.

One year later, I am learning to draw again?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùthis time, under the direction of CMU?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s Mark Mentzer.

Can’t Draw Straight or Round

We started with straight lines. Freehand. One inch. Proved challenging. Apparently my idea of an inch is about 7/8 of an inch. This means I have not been selling myself short.

Then we drew one-inch squares. Then circles. And then we experimented with weights and their effects.

First Squares

My squares and circles weren’t too bad. But I did get frustrated along the way, as is the case with most things that I cannot do well but want to do well.

Our homework assignment is to draw a room and through lines or squiggles or whatever show how that room is used or how light affects the room or heat or sound. I started and put lines all over the place and it looks pretty gay, so I decided to procrastinate by blogging.

We have to hang these on the wall tomorrow morning and try to figure out what is going on. Ah motivation.

Fancy Pencils Will Save Me

Mark told us to get a 2B and 4B pencil, one Prismacolor black pencil and one white pencil, two gray value markers (30% and 50%), a black felt tip pen, and a Sharpie, preferably chisel tip. As I do actually want to be able to draw well, and because buying lots of drawing supplies is a lot easier than drawing itself, I happily obliged.

So at least in the purchasing of drawing supplies, I have succeeded. That?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s enough for now to keep me going.

Now, back to the you-know-what.