Drawing and Perceiving: Life Drawing for Students of Architecture and Design, 3rd Edition

211 Pages·2000·66.15 MB·English

by  Douglas Cooper

Life Drawing for Students of Architecture and Design
THIRD EDITION
Douglas Cooper
JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.
New York • Chichester • Weinheim • Brisbane • Singapore • Toronto
When they first begin taking classes with me, a large portion of my students have never taken
a prior drawing course. Their feelings must be something close to what I might feel if I were
to suddenly-heaven forbid-take up ballet.! dedicate this boo/<. to these students.
It is from them, the ones who have started with the least, that I have experienced
my greatest joys as a teacher.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Cooper, Douglas,1946-
Drawing and perceiving: life drawing for students of architecture and design I
Douglas Cooper. - 3rd ed.
p. em.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-471-35714-6 (pbk.:alk.paper)
I. Architectural drawing- Technique. 2. Visual perception. l. Title.
NA2708.C66 2000
720' .28' 4- dc21 99-089639
Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5
Contents
Introduction 1
I Engaging the Visual World ........ .. ... .. . 6
Touching and Moving Provide the Foundation 8
Ntcolaides and Contour I 0
Contour exercises I 6
Contour and Composition 28
Nicholaides and Mass 34
Mass exercises 3 6
Drawing and Making 4 2
Gesture 44
Gesture exercises 46
Spaces and Voids 48
Space exercises 50
Space in Practice 60
2 The Order of Appearance ...... . .. . ... .... . . 63
Gibson and Textural Gradient 64
Textural Gradient and Form exercises 72
Gibson and Depth Cues 82
Freehand Perspective exercises I 04
Movement and Perspective I 12
v
3
When Order Is Imposed .. ... ......... .. .. ........ I 15
When Order Is Imposed I 16
Imposing Perspective exercises I 2 2
Light and Dark and Color I 30
Light and Dark exercises I 3 2
Color exercises 136
Some Final Thoughts ......... .. ..... . .............. 145
Light and Dark and Composition 146
Appendix A: Perspective Projection . .. . ........... .. . .... 148
Appendix B: Shade and Shadow in Isometric Projection ...... . 17 6
Appendix C: Shade and Shadow in Orthographic Projection 186
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 7
Glossary . .................... ..... .. . ........... 20 I
Index ....................... .... . . . . . . ......... 205
vi Contents
Preface
Recently I heard a story from an alumnus of comes right out of the finger tips, straight
Carnegie Mellon University about the great from a knowledge of the real physical world.
Beaux Arts architect and designer of the origi And that sort of freehand drawing is all the
nal Carnegie Tech campus, Henry Hornbostel. more important in the computer age, now
Hornbostel had also served as the first Dean of that most of the work of perspective construc
Carnegie Tech's College of Fine Arts. tion is no longer necessary. So the question
is: how to get this ability?
It seems he had been brought into a design
competition for a major public commission It doesn't happen overnight. Courses that em
at the end of the process because the jury phasize expression at the expense of observa
was dissatisfied by the entrants' submissions. tion miss the point. And it doesn't come from
The jurors were hoping they might get some drawing that emphasizes appearance over
inspiring ideas from Hornbostel, and so they three-dimensional understanding. Hornbostel
invited him to inspect the site from an over could draw convincingly from that hilltop be
looking hill. Hornbostel had huge hands. And cause he understood the three-dimensional
so when they asked him what he might pro implications of the marks he set down. His was
pose, he simply whipped out his left hand, not a painterly understanding. It was informed
took a pen in his right, and there on his tablet by years of building and years of drawing what
For instructor resources, sized hand proceeded to draw a perspective he built.
point your web browser to:
rendering of what he might do. The amazed
I believe drawing ability comes from three
http://www.wiley.com/products/ jury nearly awarded him the commission
sources. It arises in the hand- almost as an
subject/ architecture/a rchdesig n/ right there on the spot.
athletic issue, the hand must move well.lt aris
cooper/ i ndex.htm I
It has been almost ten years since I wrote the es in the intellect- the structure of the world
second edition of Drawing and Perceiving, and must be understood.And it arises in concep
I have come to believe that what is most im tion-ultimately,drawing must impart order to
portant for students in design fields is exactly what is drawn.! have tried in this third edition
the sort of drawing that Hornbostel demon to address these three aspects: the first chapter
strated on that hill long ago: drawing that is addressing the body, the second the mind, and
second nature; drawing that is quick; drawing the third the spirit.
that can win the commission; drawing that
vii
Acknowledgments
Teaching begins and ends with students. and Barry Shields have taught freehand draw
Their successes are the great pleasure of ing and watercolor, and Dana Buntrock, Mark
teaching. Over the years, I have taught more English, Bruce Lindsey, Laura Lee, Laura
than 2,000 students, and their drawings are Nettleton, Paul Rosenblatt, and Nino Saggio
the heart of this work.! have also worked with have taught freehand drawing and perspec
many able colleagues and I would like to tive. Rebecca Schultz has provided illustra
mention a few: Professor John Pekruhn was tions that have appeared in both the second
the senior instructor of the course when I first and third editions. Finally, my teaching assis
came to Carnegie Mellon University He, along tants have been a wonderful help for me.
with Robert Skydell, assisted during the first Without their loyal support, it would be im
two years I taught and provided much need possible to teach the course I teach.
ed advice: Paul Ostergaard, Raymond "Bud" Of all people, this book owes its greatest
Mall (some of whose photographs appear in debt to Professor Kent Bloomer of Yale
this volume), Andrew Tesoro, and John Ritzu University The assignments, criticism, and en
were important in the implementation of the couragement of that great educator originally
exercises in the book's first and second chap led to my interest in drawing.
ters. More recently, Janice Hart, Jim Quinnan,
viii Acknowledgments
.
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Introduction
INTRODUCTION
On three occasions early in his career, archi
tect Louis I. Kahn took an extensive sketching
trip in the north coastal region of Italy Today,
with the knowledge of his subsequent career
in mind, it seems unmistakable that the bold
and simple sense of mass and volume that so
characterized his later work was first prac
ticed here in these simple pastel and wash
studies of castles and rock formations.1
Whenever his practice takes him to new
cities for extended periods of time, Pittsburgh
based architect/urban designer Ray Gindroz
always brings along a sketchbook, which he
fills with contour drawings of urban spaces of
every size and shape, ranging from intimate
courtyards to grand piazzas. Most recently, he
was in Paris and St. Petersburg. The role these
sketches play in his practice is of course indi
rect. He is not, after all, intending to rebuild St.
Figure 1.1 Louis Isidore Kahn (American, 1901-74) Towers, San Figure 1.2 Louis I. Kahn, Alfred Newton Richards Medical
Petersburg of the Romanovs or fin de siecle Gimignano, 1929. Watercolor and red pencil on paper. Williams Research Building, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA,
College Museum of Art. Museum purchase with funds provid 1957-61, Louis I. Kahn Collection, University of Pennsylvania
Paris in today's world. Nevertheless, these
ed by an anonymous donor and with the J.W. Field Fund, John and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
sketches play an important role. His annota B. Turner '24 Memorial Fund, Joseph 0. Eaton Fund, Karl E.
tions to the drawings indicate as much. These Weston Memorial Fund, Bentley W. Warren Fund 94·14.
notes point out how the architecture in each
scene articulates such concepts as levels of in classical anatomy, with its emphasis on the sign is nothing new. The sketchbooks of
privacy, way-finding, intimacy, grandeur, and unified structure of the skeleton and muscle Leonardo da Vinci alternate so seamlessly be
others, important concerns for an urban de groups, as one of the key experiences in the tween drawings of real objects and proposals
signer of any age. With his sketches, Ray seems way he now thinks about the structure of for visionary constructions that the conclu
to be creating a self-renewable primer of sorts buildings. Le Corbusier based his modular sion that one was exercise for the other is in
on the ways and means of urban design. system on the measure of the human body escapable.
The young German architect Thomas Using the natural and man-made world as This book prepares students of architec
Spiegelhalter acknowledges a course he took a source for the inspiration and order of de- ture and design for the kind of drawing de-
2 Introduction
Figure 1.3 Raymond Gindroz, Urban Design Associates. Figure 1.4 Le Corbusier, Le Modular.
scribed above. The subject is life-drawing. called "design drawing," though I anticipate designers come to a closer understanding of
The relationship of this subject to the actual that young designers and architects using this the elements of design.
practice of an architect or designer is implic book will also (as they should) use the tech
it, though indirect. This book is not about niques it presents for their developmental 1 The Travel Sketches of Louis I. Kahn (Pennsylvania
drawing media, though several are practiced, and presentational sketches. Underlying this Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1978).
and I expect students will gain considerable book is an assumption, true I believe through
skill in these media in doing the exercises in out the ages: that through closer observation
this book. This is not a book about what is and understanding of the real physical world,
Introduction 3