Workshop One: Architectural Drawing- Rotation Two

I was really excited to start Workshop One, as I really wanted to work on my drawing skills and it sounded like a really good ground knowledge for architecture. The lecture on the day we started the workshop was actually by Felicity about the workshop and I really enjoyed it. It made me even more excited for the workshop. I admit, I was a little bit intimidated by the work from the first rotation that she showed as examples during the lecture however, but I was ready to give it my best shot. Felicity gave a quick run-through of her lecture again, and went through some finer details on perspective, the differences between plan, section and elevation drawings and the expectations of the workshop. Our first exercise was to draw a plan, section and elevation drawing of a cup, to cement in our minds what each of these drawings showed. We had to be very exact, and the drawings were done to a 1:1 scale. It took the rest of the studio to complete, and even then I had to render it at home, but I really enjoyed the task. It helped me remember the differences between section and elevation drawings and it gave me a chance to use my drawing skills. I also really liked the feedback we got from Ross and Felicity throughout the workshop, they were really helpful and gave me some confidence in my drawing capabilities. They were really supportive and gave great tips as well. We were also given our major assignment for the studio at the end- we were to complete a minimum of 2 section, 2 plan and 2 elevation drawings of Rose Seidler House in Wahroonga, as well as a 3D drawing, to a scale of 1:100. It seemed like a big task but exactly the type of project I wanted, so I was excited.

My still life drawing of the cup

For the second week of studio, we focused on perspective drawings, and some guidelines for perspective drawings. We were given a simple exercise to start with, where we had to fill in a few objects on a scene and then render it, and we then had to complete two perspective drawings of somewhere in the uni, a one-point and a two-point. I started with my two-point in studio, and I was actually pretty happy with it. I found the task challenging but thought I completed it quite nicely. I was proud of my effort. I completed the one-point perspective for homework, and I was also pleased with my end result. I attempted to be creative in my rendering techniques and explore different methods. I started to discover that, even though I needed to spend a fair amount of time on it and sometimes stopped and started again halfway through, I was proud of the work I was achieving. I was also learning a lot about rendering and drawings, especially perspective drawings. I still found perspective drawings difficult, however I was learning.

We had mid session break before the third studio, and I took the opportunity to visit Rose Seidler House in person, something that really helped me with my understanding of the house. I went through really carefully and paid extra attention to all the detail, as I wanted to be able to complete my drawings successfully. I also took a LOT of photos, to aid my assignment. The visit was a great help in my understanding of the drawings we were given, and I also got a brochure to get some background information on the house.

Studio Three started with a sketching exercise- we had to sketch an object or scene in the Red Centre using no lines, only making blocks of colour, to get us to recognise that the differences in shades and colour of objects, and the way they meet. I did three drawings, my first was very basic, my second two I tried to branch out a bit more and be adventurous and really challenge myself. It was hard, but I felt a bit better when we got back and a lot of people had drawn lines to help them. I was proud that I at least managed to not do that. For our last task, we were given a picture of the Science Lawn at Uni, and were told to draw the Rose Seidler House onto it, using one given scale to make it the right size. It sounded difficult when it was introduced but I actually enjoyed it. It was definitely a challenge, but a good one. I was really happy with my end result, and feel that it reflects how much I have learnt in the past few weeks.

Rose Seidler House drawn onto the Uni Science Lawn

My trace overlay of Rose Seidler House

For the final week, I was quite proud of my work. I really liked my perspective drawing the most, as I drafted it completely from scratch, using the techniques learnt during studio. I quite liked my rendering as well, as I have been trying to improve on my drawing skills. The feedback I received was quite helpful, I was told that my rendering on my sections and elevation were slightly confusing and not very clear, which looking back on it, I can see what they mean. I found this workshop really helpful and I feel that I learned a lot- I quite enjoyed it.