Sketching

Overview

Sketching is an extremely useful skill to have when designing. Sketches can help you communicate ideas quickly, allowing you to develop better designs faster. We appreciate that there is probably a wide range of sketching ability among students, which is why we put together the videos below. These are designed to introduce you to (or remind you of) basic sketching concepts, and to help you advance your current skills.

Tools and Tips

What’s in the lab

This video provides a brief introduction to the sketching tools kept in the lab. We have several sets of these tools kept in hard cases. Ask a TA to help you find them in the lab.

  • Colored Pencils – Often used for setting up a sketch, shading, and highlighting. Great for making lines of various thicknesses.
  • Sharpie/Fineliner – Used to clean up lines and make details pop
  • Alcohol Markers – Used for shading (3+ colors ideal)

In addition to these tools, we have various kinds of paper.

  • Printer paper – everyday paper great for quick sketches
  • Marker paper – larger paper that doesn’t bleed through, great for detailed sketches
  • Vellum paper – see through paper great for tracing

3D 2-Point Perspective

Cubes in 3D

The basic sketching concepts covered in this video are:

  • Horizon Line and Vanishing points
  • Creating a cube
  • Extending cubes
  • Perspective and object positioning
  • Shading a cube
  • Tumbling and rotating cubes

Primitives

Cylinders, Cones, Spheres, and Additions

The basic sketching concepts covered in this video are:

  • Cylinders
  • Cones
  • Spheres
  • Simple addition of shapes