I am now halfway through the course. Here are some of my latest drawings.

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.

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.

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.

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?｢どｨび｢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?｢どｨび｢ll tackle organic shapes tomorrow. Naturally.

So I shared a classmates?｢どｨび｢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?｢どｨび｢re just shapes, and not all the good. But I don?｢どｨび｢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.