Cool Vids About Theater Set and Architecture Design

Here's a series of videos I've found while researching info for my set design apprentices on the topic of : "Plans!  How and Why... and What Are They!"  (I joke, but seriously, floor plans are so fundamental to understanding, designing, and documenting a set design... why is there so little explanation available?)

Here's a wonderful explanation of a clever and charming set by designer Wendy Todd.  It has nothing to do with plan drawing, but is just wonderfulness:

Here's one of my favorite architectural explainers, Stewart Hicks, talking about plans:

And here's a face new to me (30 x 40 Design Workshop) with a good discussion of the architectural design process - notice how his drawings morph from rough and schematic, to precise and more real-world.  Note the use of my favorite Tracing Paper!

Getting My Hand Back In

As I'm ramping myself back up towards Efficient and Purposeful, I'm trying to do more drawing.

Today's fun little project was a few portraits - action poses! - of friends' Minecraft avatars:

Inspired by (which is pronounced, "kind-a ripp-ed-off from") the wonderful illustrations that medieval scribes decorated the edges of texts with.  Combined with MC avatar designs, of course.  

Fun!

 

Siege - Day 75

Saturday!  And pretty weather.

Oh, and here finally is the color version of that birthday certificate that took all those days.  Now in a gold frame, trucking its way westward toward the birthday party.  Be safe!

copyright Clare Floyd DeVries

Neverending Siege? - Days 64068

The big project lately - which has shoved all others off my board as I desperately try to make a deadline - is a big hand drawn and colored birthday certificate.

(I just hope Blogger will let me upload this... it's been cranky and difficult lately... which is why that last post had no illustration.)

Here goes...

So far so good - the photo loaded to the page, we'll see if it loads to the website.

What you should see is the B&W under-drawing.

Otherwise... Well, there hasn't really been any otherwise, just this for the last week.  

Though we did risk a barbeque run yesterday - take out, of course.  The BBQ was very tasty, but we won't be going back to that BBQ joint again until the virus situation calms down.  They just didn't have their act together.  I was one of only two people out of twelve wearing a mask correctly (the bartender had hers protecting her chin and eight had no mask at all).  There was some space between people, but in spite of ordering and paying ahead by phone, I still had to wait a long time in line (with the unmasked lady who said she was going to spread word of their food - and virus possibly - when she went home to Nashville).  And I still had to use their grubby pen to sign my receipt, so what was the point?  And open several doors.  Just not good enough.

Frankly, I think we're in trouble here in Dallas.  (And Nashville will be shortly.)

Seriously people!  Take this pandemic seriously.  Wear a mask at least, for everyone else's sake.

Siege - Days 40, 41, and 42

It suddenly occurs to me that we have been doing this for longer than Noah's cruise.

Slightly less damp is all.

It's been a weekend of heads-down projects: beach house drawings, stripping paint off of the front door in order to repaint it, and adding paint to the new flower pot that was the best thing I could find.  (In olden days of 6 weeks ago - I'd have visited 3-4 other stores to find exactly what I wanted.  Now I say, "Close enough.")  Today was planting in that newly painted pot.  I'm also sewing several fabric face masks... this time with a classy pineapple print fabric.

It's cool.

public domain image

Forbidden Sketching

Sketchbooks are VITAL.

Just saw a recent, highly-irate commentary by Oliver Wainwright on the Victoria & Albert Museum's policy of not allowing photography or sketching! in its temporary exhibits.

That's really pretty awful.

(If you don't know it, the V&A is a treasure.  Buy a plane ticket and an entry ticket and go visit it immediately.  I'll wait.)

...You back?

Sketching in a museum is how an artist studies.  Learns stuff.  Not allowing sketching in an art museum is like not allowing reading in a library.  Anyway, the irate article is in The Guardian HERE:  in a post titled "'No Sketching': V&A signs betray everything the museum stands for."

Now, it's not like you should go running around and recklessly sketch just any old how: one of our local museums here in Dallas - Fort Worth does restrict sketching to pencil only (afraid that the temptation to draw an ink moustache on a portrait might be irresistible), but after asking you to put that pen away, they'll happily provide the pencil.  Because they know that being able to sketch is important.

Sketching is so important that the V&A even has a webpage extolling the importance of sketchbooks HERE.  (They should read it.)

Why is drawing so important?  On the V&A's page architect Eva Jiricna explains it perfectly:

"If I draw it for myself, I understand it. If I try to imagine it, it is too whimsical. Sketching is a tool - an extension of one's brain."

A page from the 13th C sketchbook of architect Villard de Honnecourt

Seeing, drawing, trying to understand & thinking - copyright long expired

So why the V&A's no-drawing ban?

Keepin' the line movin'.  Move along, move along...  I mean, are museums about art and education or are they about selling some tickets here!

Such a pity that drawing - and thinking - takes so damn long isn't it?

Architectural Sketching

And it works for theater design too!

I sometimes drop by Jim Leggitt's "Drawing Shortcuts" website to see really excellent renderings and to learn something to improve my own drawing skills.

He uses a totally fearless mix of media and methods to create lovely, fresh, simple (seemingly) freehand (looking) architectural sketches.  He seems to usually start with a SketchUp model and/or a photo, then adds in hand drawing and coloring using mostly markers and some pencil. He might overlay and trace computer or photographic material or draw directly on top of them.

Amazing!  I particularly like his use of entourage people, plants, umbrellas etc.  (A lot better than that same sad ficus tree or little-girl-with-balloon I saw used back in the day.)

Check 'em out HERE with his post on creating sketches that show the repurposing of a urban alley.  Drawn as illustrations for a lecture... I'm wondering if he'll ever lecture near me?

Phone photo to hand drawn sketch - Jim Leggitt / Drawing Shortcuts

Image copyright is Mr. Leggitt's of course, believed Fair Use as in a review.

At any rate I'm vowing to use more SketchUp and photos in creating my own theatrical drawings.  I'm the Queen of Tracing Stuff already, why not make that tracing more 3D-ish?  (And it'll help keep computer skills up at the same time.)

Paper Rules!

An encouraging finding: among 4,000 designers surveyed world-wide, most of them - 64% - still use plain ol' paper and pen or pencil to brainstorm.

Doesn't surprise me at all.

One designer remarked on the particular usefulness of this old-tech method in a meeting.  

Exactly!  Nothing is as fast, as flexible, as readily available as scribbling on paper.  You can respond immediately to the flow of thought in a meeting - or while solo brainstorming.  There is less temptation to perfect the drawing (and computers do prefer perfect); instead the impulse on an impromptu scrap of paper is to rough out something messy but expressive. 

The this-ain't-nothin' worthlessness of a quick sketch on a cocktail napkin is part of its value - it stops the rough idea from becoming too precious to change or discard.

Sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries - do not use commercially please.

The ability to create fast hand sketches is so useful that I once

got flown to Tennessee just to show design grad students how.

Now, the old style of formal hand-drawn drafting or presentation drawings... those easily(ish) translate into computer hardware and software use.

More on the survey HERE at Wired.com.

Final Performance and Strike

In a funny coincidence, both my shows ended their runs last night.

Today is Strike for The Lucky Chance and I'm due at the Bath House at noon to help.  So I'm wearing my paintin' pants as I draw a little on the show that replaces God of Carnage, which is A Brand New Boise.

Stay tuned!

New Toy!

My recent birthday/early-Christmas/Easter/4th-of-July present is a brand new computer drawing tablet!

Eventually, you, Faithful Reader, will get to see examples of my computer-drawing prowess...

Maybe on July 4th?

Until then, I'm practicing!

The Importance of Drawing

In architecture -  but also to any type of design or designer.

Here's the master Michael Graves writing in the New York Times: "Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing."  I absolutely agree - drawing and the designer's hand are part of the machinery of thought, vital parts of study, memory, and creation.

I am also strangely encouraged to discover that I share my love of the humble rolls of yellow tracing paper known to architects of my generation as "yellow trace" or, most affectionately, "trash paper."

(Because, while designing, we trash soooo much of it.)

A sketch for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at Uptown Players, copyrighted, of course

As Michael Graves's sketches are copyrighted, here's the most Gravesian of my own, a sketch for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on - of course! - yellow trace.


An earlier post on architectural sketching HERE.

Deadlines

Aaaargh!

Some days are Rush days.  Yesterday I had to quick-quick-quick rush out sketches for one show.  Today I need to rush out another.

(The consequence of having to take time off.  Vacations?  Just a speed-bump in the March of Progress.)

Quick! To the drawing board!

Public domain image.

Drawing...

Drawing, drawing, drawing, drawing, drawing...

Here's That Sketch

The one inspired by Edward Gorey that I mentioned in my last post - on the Stage Design by Joseph blog.

Architectural Sketches

Even before Vitruvius, architects have needed to sketch in order to explain ideas.  Today?  Not so much.

sketch by le Corbusier

It's one of those generational complaints: older architects moan that younger ones can neither hand-letter nor hand-draw...  The computer making both skills less necessary.  Notice I say "Less."  I believe (and many artists would agree) a designer thinks using their trained hand, that when you sketch, you're not just recording information - as a photo does - but analyzing and internalizing your understanding.  It's the same mechanism that makes writing your own notes more memorable than photocopying someone else's, but added to that is the effort to really look.  To see.  The sketch needn't be pretty - that's a bonus.

Perhaps the only advantage of the terrible job situation right now for young architects and interns may be that they have time to look, sketch, photograph, and think.  Many good architects will leave the profession - go where there IS work.  But it wouldn't surprise me if, when building resumes, a new generation rises of very thoughtful, dedicated, and determined architects.  Some of which can sketch.

The art of architecture could use that energy.

sketch by Andrew Lewis

I love the economy of this sketch of the Alamo by Andrew Lewis.  You can see the artist thinking through the proportions, the symmetry, the geometries of the building.

ESP at work - my set design apprentice just called to discuss his sketching.  He's at the stage where he's looking for exemplars and is studying Edward Gorey's technique.  And here's an example:

image by Edward Gorey courtesy of Mental Flea Market

A Set Designer's Days

The pace is picking up here.

The Traveling Lady is being built at WaterTower Theatre, so I visited yesterday to meet painters and deliver paint go-bys and color chips and will visit again today to look at furniture in the warehouse.  There are notes and negotiations going on about exactly where the grave should be located and the normal tweaks.  I've shopped for spring foliage and taken a walk by the creek to collect chinaberries.

Meanwhile a first meeting with another director to decide on scenic directions for Five Women Wearing the Same Dress and furious sketching to show what was talked of at last week's meeting on Marvin's Room.  Lots more on other shows to do too.  Time is speeding up!

SNIPPET #10

The next little sample from the "Design Methods" chapter of my up-coming design book, Alice Through the Proscenium:


Ask Questions -  “What if…?”  “If only…?”  “I wonder…” and “Wouldn’t it be interesting if…?” 4.14

Diary – Carry a sketchbook and scribble as ideas occur.  Tape in fabric swatches and paint chips.  Note research and questions.  Alternatives.  It becomes a day-book recording your process.  Your sketchbook may become an ever-growing pile of sketchbooks, years of compiled research and thought, a very personal encyclopedia.  Leonardo published his.

 "Alice looked on with great interest as the King took an enormous memorandum-book out of his pocket, and began writing."

                                                 

Drawing – Draw every day.  Draw your coffee mug, the blue jay on the fence, a single leaf.  Like the sisters in the Dormouse’s story, draw anything:

  “- they were learning to draw, you know –“

   “What did they draw?” said Alice.

    “Treacle …  and they drew all manner of things – everything that begins with an M –

     “Why with an M?” said Alice.

    “Why not?…  such as mousetraps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness –“


Constant drawing helps in two ways: by making you really look at the world, and by exercising your hand.  (If a coffee cup is tough, maybe practice would help before drawing the frustration of Hamlet?)  Like any skill, drawing gets easier, better, faster with practice.  You begin to think with your pencil.  Different tools – pencil, pen, marker, lipstick – give different results.  Try a computer, but also try paint and pen-and-ink and markers.  Keep practicing.

Other advantages to practicing your quick-draw is that it can be used right there in the meeting.  It helps sell your ideas: an excited, “You got it!” aided by a bold, fast, effective scribble on the director’s cocktail napkin is almost irresistible.

4.14 Author Neil Gaiman gives these and other insights on the Idea Question at his website - look under “Neil’s Essays” and “Where do you get your ideas?”

Construction Drawings

Not, one would think, a subject of much debate.

Wrong. Designers have strong opinions about how to give the information - graphic and written - needed to build a set. At the moment there is no standard.

I saw an interesting set of drawings by another scenic designer: beautiful, large, free-hand pencil drawings - lovely confident sweeping lines with almost no dimensions or notes - plus a small, crisp, information-packed computer-drafted or CAD plan. Right there you see the clash of the old standard with the new.

The ex-standard was hand-drawn drafting done in pencil on largish sheets of paper, copied in blueline (used to be blueprint). Blueprint has been archaic for about 30 years. And blueline? It's really really hard to find a Diazo machine anymore, so that's out. Xerographic copying still works. Or computer plotting. That plan I saw was a plot.

Pencil is sorta... disappearing. It's almost gone in architecture, fading fast in theater. Computer drafting will be the standard any second now. Sad. Pencil can be beautiful and artistic and quite fast.

My own drawings? I like a small format - 11" x 17" (because it fits any copier )and hand-drawing in ink (for better copying).

(The plan above was for Glass Menagerie at WaterTower Theatre)