Haven’t posted anything for some time due to so many things that I had to do at the Academy and also volunteering jobs. I will post my most interesting projects that I made in study process. I just need to take some neat photos and post it here. Easier said than done

Also, I became really lazy and didn’t sketch at all for a while. Therefore I am back to simple things. I am still avoiding using a ruler – my aim is to be able to draw freehand straight lines. Some lines are quite straight but others are a little bit wobbly.

Here is a quite fast side view sketch of a power drill.There were several materials used like blue, black and gray markers, a blue pastel and a black fine liner. The right side of a product looks too flat and boring. Should have done something about it.

I am always excited when I find a tutorial video for product sketching. It is easier to understand a sketch when it is being created not just looking at a finished and polished sketch. I believe that you learn faster when you can watch how other create sketches.

Today I have drawn rough sketches of a lantern. And inspiration came from this video below.

I only used a black fine liner and some sheets of paper. Honestly, all these ellipses are just a nightmare to me. I still struggle with them but I will keep practicing. Here are a few sketches that I made and haven’t edited or erased any of lines.

I thought that it is a piece of cake to draw multiple ellipses in on line but no..it turned out quite difficult and you can still see that ellipses are not aligned in sketches.

Have you ever been drawing something and noticed how a drawing looked much better up close than from a distance? As if it was perfect in a process but when finished it felt like someone switched your sketch with a bad-looking one. This small but quite important tip for this week – “Assessing your sketch: Why and How?” will help you to assess a sketch while you draw.

Don’t sketch too close to your paper; you will get lost in details that are not that important.

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WHY ?

In a process of classical drawing it is essential to take a break and look at your drawing from a distance. We tend to draw close to a paper and forget to look at a sketch from and angle or a distance. Why is it important to view a sketch from different viewing angles? It’s because while drawing you start to focus on one things and don’t see how it works together with the rest of lines and shapes.

A sketch is a symphony of different kinds of lines and geometric shapes.

If you are interested in reading about importance of a line in product sketching, read this article here. A drawing will look good if every shape and line is in harmony with each other and complement each other. There are details that are in the center of attention and there are shapes that helps to build the entire look of a product but stays in the background.

If you sketch only up close and don’t see a whole picture of what you are doing, you will get a drawing that will be bald and boring. Every detail will scream for attention and a viewer will not be able to perceive your sketch the way you wanted it. It takes only a minute to look at your drawing from a distance and I assure you that you will see many things that should be edited or even erased.

HOW?

The fastest way to look at your sketch is from arm’s length. Just take a drawing and stretch your arm in front of you. Take as much time as you need to assess your sketch. Notice what is the first thing you see in the sketch – is it the right detail you wanted to be emphasized?

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A second technique is also very simple but will help you to see wrong perspective or distorted shapes. Just rotate your drawing 180 degree so that your drawing is upside down. Can you spot mistakes? Lines that don’t create a perfect perspective? You can also assess the balance of contrast by looking at your sketch upside down.

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Another way is to hold your drawing in front of a mirror. It is an entirely fresh way looking at your sketch.

These small tips will help you to spot mistakes in your sketches and correct them while it’s not too late.

This sketch was creating while watching this dvd and learning from it. The task was to create a steel cutlery using such tools as markers and pastels.

This sketch was creating while watching this dvd and learning from it. The task was to create a steel cutlery using such tools as markers and pastels.

This is a first stage of a sketch. I wanted to show how the sketch was created – to show stages of it. And in the first stage contours are created with a black fine liner and darker places are colored with a black marker. I used an ellipse template to create a perfect oval shape for the spoon.

The second stage was to use grey markers and create shades and some color on surfaces. A black pencil was used to blend together grey areas. The next thing was to cover entire sketch with a layer of talcum powder before applying pastel dust with a cotton pad. The final touch was adding white lines.

This is a finished sketch. It looks much better on a paper than on a screen.

People tend to choose shapes with rounding and sleek surface because it creates feeling of natural shape and safety. Sharp edges make people feel uneasy and insecure. That’s why most of the products have rounding, a smooth surface this way creating a impression of a natural shape.

In this article you will find out how to draw singular rounding starting with a square and creating a smooth shape.

As cylindrical parts become relatively small, we speak of rounding. There are several ways to draw a singular rounding, but this is way is used, to highlight the relation of the rounding to the block shape.

Start with drawing a square and divide it in the middle so that it creates four smaller squares. Try to draw an ellipse in it. If you have troubles drawing an ellipse, click here to learn more about constructing ellipses.

Dividing the ellipse into four parts, one can distinguish two sharply curved rounding (around long axes), and two less sharply curved ones. The latter are easier to draw and that’s why usually drawn first.

To draw a three dimensional shape, start with a top and draw rounding in all four edges. Let these images be your guide and try to understand what for are specific lines and how they help to create a shape.

To keep all four rounding of the same proportion, a diagonal can be used to indicate the more sharply curved rounding in the outer squares. Diagonals are marked in red. Green lines are guides to keep most curved spots in equidistant from all four edges.

If we talk about quarter-circle rounding, they form an ellipse when put together again. Therefore the shading of the rounded edges will also form a cylinder when put together. In the image below you can see the relation between the shaded cylinder and a separate rounding.

Drawing singular rounding, uses less of the block shape as a guide for the rounding. And the rounding is well defined on the top surface and easily repeated on the base surface. The advantage of this approach is not only less lines, but also there is space for a more complex combination of rounding.

Most of the information is taken from a book “Sketching – The Basics” by Koos Eissen & Roselien Steur. It is a very useful book for industrial design students and those who want to learn how to sketch.

This is a first part of three-part series Sketching Drills where will be presented various tips and practices to improve your sketching abilities.

SD – Sketching Drills is how I named these so called boring but very useful practices to improve sketching skills. You might wonder how all these designers can draw straight lines without rulers and create amazing sketches in a short amount of time. What can I say – practice makes perfect and it is very true. In this article I will show some tips and practices that you can try in order to learn to draw straight lines.

I have written an article about How to draw straight lines before and this is an improved version of the previous post. I will show you exercises that I have created myself and also that I found in some articles.

One crucial thing to remember while drawing is:

Make sure that you are sketching with a whole hand and not with your wrist. Use an elbow and shoulder to draw.

Drill 1

This is how a first exercise looks like. A huge amount of freehand straight lines on a sheet of white paper. I usually take a piece of paper that has been used on one of the sides and just use the clean one. This way you save some money and also it is a full use of paper resources. With this exercise you can have some fun – at first try to draw all lines with equal spaces between them, then try to draw lines the same length and finally create straight grids.

Draw whenever you have time – at school, in a bus or train, while watching a movie.

Save and print out these images to exercise.

Drill 2

I call this exercise “stars in the sky” due to all these small dots on a paper and lines that are connected in one dot. I find this exercise very useful to learn how to create straight corners when drawing, for example, a chair.

Main points where lines are intersecting are in red colors and green dots are a starting point for lines. This exercise is about connecting all lines in one red point.

I have noticed that it is much easier to start from red point and moving to green points rather than start from a green point and finish a line when it touches a red dot. Try both ways to feel a difference.

Download this sample for this exercise or just draw points on a paper.

Drill 3

The third exercise is similar to the second but now you have to connect three or more points with straight lines. Create clean and solid lines.

Connect two points with one stroke and no chicken scratches or how I call them – dog hair.

Download this sample and get creative – practice drawing freehand straight lines and connect dots in various interesting geometric shapes. Right now you can see only dots but when you will start drawing – create a new world for this sheet of paper.

I hope that these exercises will be useful and next time I will give some tips practicing drawing ellipses ( I’m still learning to draw a perfect ellipse).

I wrote before that I am taking some additional classes to learn how to work with metal. My first assignment was to create a candle holder – you can see the result here. And the next one is to create a shaker for any spice and I chose a pepper shaker. In this post I will write about the first stage – creating models and starting to work with copper sheets.

Thinking

As soon as I heard the task I knew that I want to create a shaker in a shape of a pepper and then I just started to create models from a modeling clay. I created three different shapes and chose one of them. Creating models helps to feel the shape in hand and understand how it will be held. All three shapes are interesting in their own way but I had to choose only one.

In the image below you can see what shape did I choose. I find it quite interesting – a flat surface as opposed to convex surfaces. I didn’t pay to much of attention on finishing a smooth surface of a model. It is just a model and in a process of creation everything may change – from angles to shapes and appearance of a surface.

Creating

And the next move was to prepare different sizes of copper sheets and start hammering on an anvil. It was the first time doing something like that and I really enjoying hammering and then tempering metal for further processing. It was just like modeling a shape but with different tools. Very exciting!

In the images above you can see the result of 2 or 3 hours of work – from a flat to curvy surface. Very dirty work – hands are black and that’s why my white shaker model turned gray after touching it for a few times.

The result can bee seen on these images. In close up you can see hammer marks. In the process I changed the look of a pepper shaker. The side is curvier and all planes are different. This is just one side of a shaker and I need to create more shapes that will be soldered together.

This was just a first day and I am really excited to continue working on this design and create a wonderful object. I will post another article when I continue my work on this project.

Haven’t checked this website www.sketch-a-day.com by Spencer Nugent for awhile but today I spent some time checking his amazing sketches and tutorials that he posts from time to time.

This is a sketch posted on March 2 with a video showing the process – video. Videos are very informative and really helps me to understand how the sketch is created, which tools are used first. I was watching the video, sketching and rendering and this is what I came up with. Also, I added some chalk dust and a white pencil.

The perspective is off in many places because I was impatient and wanted to start rendering as soon as possible and didn’t check if the construction of a product is correct.

The main goal was to learn how to weld and the design I chose was perfect for this assignment – simple, easy and fast.

I made several models from drinking straws and later as bars were sawed, I joined them with a modeling clay -  this way I could actually see how a candle holder will look.

Welding was easy but it was a little bit tricky to strengthen bars and keep them in place.

Also, had a chance to work on a lathe machine and I had a lot of fun! Grinding and filing were another operations I did for this project.

The result looks nice! And no, the flame doesn’t heat the metal so far that it cannot be touched.

In my opinion, the candle holder turned out pretty good for my first project. And this is only the beginning – the next project is to create a pepper shaker and this will require more time, skills and patience.