IN THIS SECTION, WE INTRODUCE THE BASIC MECHANICS AND TECHNIQUES for drawing by hand. We also present essential approaches to representing the physical and visual world to enable you to build an understanding of how you think through ideas. This section includes best practices for sketching with an emphasis on structure and achieving a correctness of form—working from basic marks on paper to using perspective systems to represent physical space. Sketching & Drawing Basics focuses on the how to sketch with supportive rationale for the why to sketch. We expect that you will gain an understanding of how to assess the quality and effectiveness of your sketches, work from a variety of exercises and examples to improve your sketching ability, and develop your own expressive style. You should feel comfortable enough to draw in this book. Mark it up with notes and ideas, and make it a reliable companion.

In this book, we will present many ways to make drawings more effective employing visual form, craft, composition, and layout/structure. We view drawing and sketching as a means of visual storytelling, an applicable and important skill for all design disciplines that helps creative professionals communicate their ideas to themselves and to others. In the following sections of this book, you will learn a variety of methodologies for hand-generated visualization, including notational, exploratory, and explanatory sketching. We demonstrate methods and discuss approaches for planning, preparing, and generating your drawings in the most effective and evocative ways.

1.1 PLANNING YOUR DRAWINGS

THE BEST SKETCHES visualize ideas through good, compelling form; without substance, the form is empty—and without form, the substance has no voice. Sketches need to transfer information and interpret complex information into definable chunks or messages. How they are visualized depends as much on personal aesthetics as on experience.

The rule of thumb is to develop sketches in a straightforward manner while allowing them to be expressive. A few years ago, a Carnegie Mellon design student named Anna Carey coined the term “freshture” in the context of a drawing class. Her insightful, pithy term seemed to sum up the qualities of good sketches the class was describing—fresh and gestural. Freshness or crisp qualities to strokes, so that they look like they are held in tension, make sketches appear more kinetic. Letting gesture influence mark-making by purposefully missing outlines and overdrawing in key areas adds another quality. Said another way, good sketches are accurate and precise in structure and message but rough in expression. This approach allows some flexibility in the reading of the sketch and takes the formality and rigid qualities away to make the drawing more visually accessible. Keeping “freshture” in mind may help to ensure that a sketch reads clearly as a preliminary thought and is not misinterpreted as a final drawing or concrete idea.

6 tips for achieving “freshture” in idea and concept sketches

Sketches that show intent, embody clear simple messages, and are rendered in expressive ways tend to be more positively received. Sketches with “freshture” appear more lively and depict a certain energy yet have a precision in form and proportion that makes them understandable and believable. Following are some tips for achieving these qualities in your concept sketches.

rough, refined, rendered

Sketches range in fidelity and quality from rough to precise, each with its own use in supporting the perceived advancement of a concept through the design process. Rough ideas rendered roughly may have meaning for the author but may not translate well to an audience. These audience sketches still must be accurate in structure to carry the intent and meaning. The goal is to structure them in such a way as to look unfinished or unrefined. Rough is not inaccurate, but it might be incomplete, thereby enabling the mind to fill in and complete the image. This is effective in engaging your audience and allowing them to think through the ideas more carefully, leaving room for interpretation and for viewers to fill in with their imagination.

Keeping it rough helps people focus on the big picture when it’s important. An expressive sketch that is fairly rough invites conversation about an idea. The more precise a sketch is, the more concrete an idea appears. For designers, preserving a degree of roughness is advantageous—the rougher the sketch, the clearer it is that your drawing is a draft in progress and therefore subject to less nit-picking scrutiny by your peers and clients. Resist the temptation to show too much detail until it is absolutely necessary.

Persuasion is an interactive art in itself. To really sell an idea, lead viewers toward making some conclusions for themselves and see some of their thinking reflected in the sketches. They need to feel that they helped shape an idea into its final form.

Rough but accurate

Refined but not too concrete

Rendered and highly accurate

My drawings at the white board are awful. How can I make them better and become more confident sketching in front of people?

It is difficult to draw on white boards due to the lack of feedback from the slick surface, its vertical orientation, and standing in front of others who are watching your every move. Practice may be necessary, so set up a white board at home or go into the office early to warm up. When you are drawing in front of an audience, you have their attention, so take your time to make good drawings that demonstrate your intent.

ROUGHNESS VS. PRECISION IN IDEA AND CONCEPT SKETCHES

Idea and concept sketches differ in their intent and application. Idea sketches are typically representative of a designer’s personal exploration of ideas. In many ways, idea sketches (or ideations) are records of a dialogue between the designer and the subject. Typically, we start with this level of exploration to understand our own ideas—a process that can be fairly informal. Concept sketches are used to communicate ideas to others, to demonstrate thinking and detail attributes of an idea. As such, they represent a latter stage in the idea generation process, as they aim to bring coherence to your ideas.

STAGE 1: Idea Sketches for Personal Exploration

“Roughly rough” idea sketches tend to be personal in nature, communicating best to the author who can mentally fill in the gaps that exist on the page. These sketches tend not to connect with an audience due to their low fidelity and highly personal nature.

STAGE 2: Idea Sketches

“Roughly precise” sketches may be very basic concept sketches, CAD models, or wireframes. These sketches, done by hand or computer, point toward shared understanding. Generally, the form of these sketches is expressive and accurate, not scratchy and incomplete.

STAGE 3: Concept Sketches

“Precisely rough” sketches incorporate strategically “sketchy” features, such as over-drawn lines, to show intent with a clear message but with an appearance that is somewhat more informal and less concrete. They leave little room for interpretation but present an invitation for collaborative discussion on functionality, features, part/pieces, and so on.

STAGE 4: Refined Sketches

“Precisely precise” sketches are depicted in the most exacting way, leaving little or no room for discussion or feedback. These sketches are used for presentation purposes and serve to communicate ideas that are highly resolved. In product design, these may take the form of a marker rendering or CAD rendering. In interaction design or graphic design, they may be sample screens or mock-ups rendered in Photoshop, Illustrator, or the like to represent as close to the real thing as possible. While not technical drawings like blueprints, these drawings do serve to illustrate more exacting qualities of the idea or concept.

1.2 PREPARING TO DRAW

WHEN SITTING DOWN to sketch, you have to be in the right frame of mind to generate ideas; otherwise, you may find it to be frustrating and unproductive. Expect that not all of your drawings are going to be great, and that’s okay. You want to keep record of your less successful sketches so that they can better inform your next sketch. Therefore, pitch your erasers. If you continually erase, then you are effectively starting over again and again and again…

An open attitude and expectation of discovery are ideal for drawing your ideas effectively. Expecting the unexpected is the first key in allowing your eyes, mind, and hand to work in concert without forcing a desired outcome. Sometimes your drawings will evolve over the page; other times they will be precisely executed. Sketching under duress or extreme time constraints can have a detrimental effect. Find a quiet, well-lit place to help you to focus for a sustained period of time.

Proper posture can improve the quality of your drawing. Sit with your back relatively erect, allowing your elbows to reach the table surface, with the page centered directly in front of you. Angle the page slightly and move it back and forth for a comfortable position. Avoid hunching or leaning too far over the page.

holding your pen or pencil

How you hold your drawing tool is really important for two reasons: (1) a proper grip enables you to manipulate the tool with ease and control; and (2) with the appropriate amount of tension, a proper grip will also allow you to draw for a longer period of time with minimal effort. A proper grip should be loose enough that you can pull a pencil out from your pinching fingers with ease but tight enough that if you raise your hand over your head, the pencil does not fall out.

When you grip a pencil or pen, you should pinch with your thumb and index finger using the first knuckle on your middle finger as a rest. If your middle finger floats to the top of the barrel so that you’re gripping with three fingers, you’ll engage your forearm muscles, which creates fatigue and tension on your wrist. Drawing for a sustained period of time takes both focus and physical discipline. Therefore, a proper grip will enable you to work more efficiently.

Pens and pencils perform differently. The slower you move a pen, the heavier its stroke will be, whereas the heavier you push on a pencil, the heavier that stroke will be. In both cases, you want to avoid making deep impressions into the paper surface. Light pressure will enable you to work faster and to build up strokes to make them darker. Rotating your pencil or pen a quarter-turn after each stroke keeps pencil tips sharp and enables the nylon tip on pens to wear evenly. You’ll be surprised at how well this works.

Too many fingers on the barrel. This is “t-rexing” the pencil.

Good grip. Pinching the barrel between the thumb and pointer, resting on the first digit of the middle finger

fear of the blank page

A blank sheet of paper can’t hurt you, but it can cause apprehension and place pressure on you to make the correct and best sketch right away. Putting down a primitive sketch or doodle first allows you to “break the surface.” Sketch pages are not intended to be the cleanest, most pristine drawings; they should capture and record your thought process. Often, you’ll see industrial designers draw a cube or a primitive version of their concept in doodle form. This necessary stage enables your brain, hands, and eyes to warm up and begin to focus on the subject. Putting a title block or frame on the sheet first enables you to ease into the white space by setting parameters for your sketch. Once some structural elements appear on the page, you can better organize your sketches and will have already warmed up a bit.

These sketches may seem like simple doodles, but designer Matt Zywica creates them to help his eyes, mind, and hand warm up before he begins sketching ideas.

Positioning your desk to take advantage of the sun angles may provide better lighting conditions for drawing.

getting your ideas on paper

The act of designing is a combination of observing, thinking, making, forecasting, validating, and developing—moving from fuzzy, loosely defined constraints to concrete ideas and criteria. Similarly, drawing your ideas occurs the same way. Sketches can be built up in fidelity and detail starting with a nonphoto blue pencil or gray marker to establish the general proportions and configuration. Then layering line work, shading, and hatching on top will define the form. During this process, you may find that your ideas will become more clearly realized and have a fresh, “sketchy” quality to them.

Work consistently to move ideas forward and provide an adequate record of your thought process. If you move too quickly with half-visualized ideas or very loose, scratchy drawings, you may stifle your thinking and prevent your ideas from evolving or growing. Aim to generate copious amounts of sketches that capture your thought process so that you can reflect on your ideas and project forward to form new ones.

Don’t abandon an idea until you’ve sufficiently explored it. The car sketches here show a day’s worth of drawings that evidence an evolution of ideas. Periodically spread your sketches out on a table and look at them as a group; you’ll be able to see trends in your thinking.

Sketching your ideas on paper enables you to spread the various pages out to see all of your ideas at a glance.

JUST KEEP SKETCHING, SKETCHING…

Many years ago, Mark Arends, professor of industrial design at the University of Illinois and author of Product Rendering with Markers, said that it takes about one thousand sketches to build confidence and competence. Behind this is the concept of muscle memory and getting your eyes and hands to work in concert with your mind. With so many sketches under your belt, you will also develop a more critical eye and should be able to discern effective sketches from ineffective ones. With competence comes confidence and eventually expertise that can be shared with others.

There are times when you may try to sketch but the ideas just don’t flow. In this instance, it is useful to keep your pen moving and keep sketching but change the subject. In many designers’ sketchbooks, you’ll find doodles of robots, cartoon characters, letterforms, and, of course, cubes. Purposeful doodling in this case is important to keep your mind active and your muscles moving freely. At some point, you’ll most likely find some inspiration and switch back over to the task at hand.

PIN IT UP & STEP BACK, FREQUENTLY

Pinning up your sketches provides perspective and helps you check how effectively your sketches communicate from a distance. Is the big idea apparent? Is there enough contrast and line weight to see details? Viewing your sketch in the context of its physical borders will help to identify larger layout issues that you might otherwise miss, enabling you to make adjustments in the context of actual viewing distance.

DRAWING THROUGH THE FORM

“Drawing through” is an approach to building up your sketch from its elemental structure to a detailed form by using a variety of line weights and showing surfaces, edges, and features on the hidden sides. This transparency enables you to see where and how to join components to bodies, work out mechanics of structure, and check the accuracy of perspective. You can use a combination of mediums to draw through an object; each has advantages.

EXAMPLE 1

You can try two pencils that vary in weight and density: .05 HB and .09 B to create distinction between lighter lines used for basic construction and darker, heavier lines used to detail the form.

EXAMPLE 2

Nonphoto blue pencil and black Prismacolor pencil enable you to create a dynamic drawing with some added visual interest. The blue structure can be deleted through a quick photocopy or dropped out in Photoshop, leaving only the rich black form. The softness of Prismacolor pencils allows you to vary the thickness and density of a line by drawing with varying amounts of pressure and speed.

EXAMPLE 3

Using a 10%, 20%, or 30% gray marker to rough in the structure provides a lightweight, loose form from which you can add more definition. Pencil or pen can be used to detail the form to create a sketch with added visual depth.

1.3 MATERIALS

SELECTING MATERIALS CAN be a daunting task, as there are so many choices for drawing pens, paper, sketchbooks, and tools. You don’t need many materials to create effective sketches, but you do need the right ones. Following are some considerations when making material selections for paper, drawing tools, and sketchbooks—three essential ingredients in your sketching arsenal.

Not all white paper is truly white. Shown here are sheets of “white” paper. Note the differences in brightness and apparent tone.

pen and paper

Designers are always looking for new pens and pencils—it’s a bit of an issue we seem to have. The feel of a pen and the quality of line it creates can have an impact on the visual quality of your sketch. To find your new favorite drawing tool, we recommend looking for those that feel comfortable in your hand, provide crisp, even strokes, and work well with the paper you intend to use. With a seemingly infinite variety of pens available, you should test them out before purchasing. Once you find a pen that works well, stick with it.

Paper choice is an often-overlooked, important aspect to sketching. Rough paper will make lines look shaky or stuttered and is best when used with pencils. Uncoated paper will make your markers bleed past bounding lines and bleed through to the page below. Standard copy, inkjet, and laserjet papers should suffice, but look for those with at least 94 ISO brightness and that are thick enough to provide an opaque surface.

Uncoated and heavily textured papers may perform poorly with certain mediums, like markers and pens. Bienfang Graphics 360 paper is very common because it is well suited for markers, colored pencils, and chalks. Its semiopaque quality enables you to see through to underlaid drawings, and its plastic-like surface enables marker ink to sit on the surface for blending. Select paper that is less prone to bleeding and will tolerate the ink of markers and pens. Certain marker papers also seem to enhance the color quality of markers and chalk pastels.

tool sets

We recommend keeping a set of your favorite tools handy wherever you sketch: a black fine-line pen, a black heavy-line pen, a black ballpoint pen, a pencil, and a medium gray marker. This is a basic suite of tools that enables you to function in a variety of sketching capacities. Should you require some spot color, simply add your favorite colored pencil or marker into the mix.

Should you require a straightedge to make better lines, a small ruler will serve you well. Erasers, shape templates, pencil sharpeners, a full range of markers, watercolors, and other tools can be part of an expanded set of tools to support your sketching. For versatility and interest, periodically swap tools out and change up the contents of your preferred tool set.

personal sketchbooks

A comfortable size for a sketchbook is 10¼" × 14" (260 × 356 mm). This is enough space to draw a few sketches on each page but not so large as to sacrifice portability; however, you should consider the size constraints of your bag/backpack as well as space limitations for where you may be sketching (in the middle seat on a plane, for instance). A basic count of fifty pages enables each book to remain lightweight and still capture a few weeks’ worth of work. More experienced sketchers may find smaller books more advantageous, but for beginners, a small page size can discourage good drawing skill development. Specifically, a small page size can hinder drawing from your shoulder (causing you to instead draw from your wrist) and keep you from creating iterative drawings (variations of the same sketch on a single page for comparison).

Moleskine A / hardcover / 5 × 8¼" (127 × 210 mm)

Global Art Materials / hardcover / 7½" × 10" (191 × 254 mm)

Lined notebook / softcover / 7" × 10" (178 × 254 mm)

Custom / leatherbound / 9½" × 12" (241 × 305 mm)

Moleskine B / softcover / 7½" × 10" (191 × 254 mm)

Michael Roger Press / 8" × 10¼" (203 × 260 mm)

Strathmore acid free / 8¼" × 11½" (210 × 292 mm)

Custom / hardcover / 10¼" × 14" (260 × 356 mm)

Moleskine / hardcover / 8½" × 12" (216 × 292 mm)

SKETCHBOOK
CONSTRUCTION

THERE ARE A variety of sketchbooks on the market, each with different paper, covers, and features; however, should you be cost-conscious and very particular about paper, constructing your own sketchbooks creates a personal artifact tailored to your preference. Constructing your own sketchbook is easy if you have the tools and the time. Generally, the effort is worth it for the cost savings alone, as handmade sketchbooks may cost as little as one-fifth the price of a store-bought one and allow you to determine a size that is most portable and effective for your sketching. It can be fun, too. There are a number of format variables to consider, such as page size, layout orientation, page count, and paper quality. The best approach to start is to experiment and see, through use, how best to tweak them so that they match your needs.

We recommend 11" × 17" Hammermill Jet Print paper (ISO A3 paper size or similar), trimmed to size, as it is inexpensive and available at most office supply stores; ten books can be made from one ream (pack). Covers can be crafted from thick cardboard or chipboard and wrapped with colored paper (about 2 inches larger in length and width to completely wrap around the edges of the board), enabling quick and easy customization. Bind your personal sketchbook with string as an attractive way to discourage removing pages; it is important to keep your good and bad sketches together to assess progress and show a trail of development from start to finish. Bad sketches should be redrawn, never removed.

Shown in the following image are some typical tools needed for constructing your own sketchbook. Following that are step-by-step instructions of the construction process for making a book sized 10¼" × 14" (260 × 356 mm). You can use this guide to create sketchbooks of nearly any size that suit your needs. Sometimes it’s convenient to have a couple of small books as well as a larger one for different situations.

CUTTING THE COVER TO SIZE

Cut two pieces of the heavy board to 10¼" × 14" (260 × 356 mm). This will be the structure for the front and back covers.

CUTTING THE HINGE

Cut an inch (about 2½ centimeters) off the heavy board pieces so that they now measure 10¼" × 13" (260 × 356 mm). These long, narrow pieces will become the spine.

MAKING A HINGE

Use masking tape to attach the 1" (2½ centimeters) piece to the heavy board. Leave a small distance between the two pieces you are joining. This distance should be no greater than the thickness of the board itself. Use tape on both sides of the heavy board for strength. Repeat this procedure for each cover.

WRAPPING THE COVERS

Use spray mount to adhere the heavy board cover to the 11" × 17" (ISO A3) colored paper. Cut the corners at 45 degree angles. Fold over and adhere to create a tightly wrapped cover.

MAKING A BACKING

Use a metal ruler and a retractable knife to cut 57 sheets of 11" × 17" (ISO A3) ink-jet paper down to 10¼" × 14" (260 × 356 mm). Use spray mount to cover the entire exposed area on the insides of the covers. Adhere one sheet of paper to each area.

CLAMPING

Align the remaining fifty-five sheets of ink-jet paper between the two covers to form the sketchbook. Use C-clamps to hold the book together throughout the binding process. Insert scrap pieces of heavy board where the clamps touch the covers to prevent damage from the clamps.

DRILLING

Drill five holes with a small drill bit. The size of the bit should be slightly larger than the thickness of the embroidery needle you’ll be using in the next step. A finishing nail can also be used instead of a drill bit; make sure to cut the head off the nail before using it in the drill.

BINDING

Use a threaded needle with about 40" of thread to bind the sketchbook. Double threading is not necessary. Leaving about 8" of thread hanging from hole A, come up and around the edge binding and back through hole A.

Go over and down through hole B. Go up around the edge binding and back down through B.

Go underneath and up through hole C. Go around the far edge and back through hole C. Then go around the binding edge and back through hole C a third time.

Coming up through hole C the third time, go over and down through hole B. Along the bottom, skip hole A and come up through D. Go around the binding edge and back up through hole D.

Go over and down through hole E. Like hole C, go around both edges and down through E.

Go under and up through hole D. Then go over and down through A. Pull the two trailing strings tightly. Turn the book over and knot the loose ends.

putting it all together

Material selection is highly personal, as your tools do affect the visual quality of your sketches. Consider trying many tools and materials before making large-quantity purchases so that you can determine what tools really do work best for you. Ask to try the tools of others and consider their recommendations, but realize that with every new tool, you may need some time to become familiar with its capabilities. Our rule of thumb is that we always try a tool in the store before making a purchase. While many stores have cheap scratch paper available for this reason, always have your sketchbook handy to see exactly how a tool will perform for you.

While you don’t necessarily need a lot of tools, especially when first starting out, you do need a range that you feel comfortable with. Aim to always carry some form of pen and pencil for line work, and a gray maker for tone. Alternatively, nylon-tip pens and watercolors are fine, too. Find what works best for you; although a regular ballpoint pen and no. 2 pencil are often perfectly suited for sketching.

Once you are equipped with your supplies, you should feel compelled to sketch as part of your daily routine. As we will discuss in this book, building confidence in your sketching comes from hours of practice, yet breakthroughs in ideas happen somewhat serendipitously. Daily sketching will keep you “in shape” to best visualize your ideas when they occur. Always having your sketchbook handy will be of obvious benefit.