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      Architecture

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      • Architecture
      • Conceptual Composition Mastery
      CoursesArchitectureConceptual Composition Mastery
      • Fundamentals
        6
        • Axonometrics And Triple Projection 45 min
        • Simple Volumes Projection, Axonometrics And Sketches 01 hour 35 min
        • Constructed Shadows Axonometrics 02 hour 10 min
        • Fundamental Box Perspectives 25 min
        • Constructed Perspective 01 hour 38 min
        • Inner Game Of Architectural Drawing 32 min
      • Simple Compositions
        4
        • Simple Volumes Composition 01 hour 24 min
        • Real Life Objects Composition 01 hour 48 min
        • Self-Portrait Composition 02 hour
          FULL FREE LESSON
        • Descriptive Geometry Axonometrics 02 hour 01 min
      • Advanced Composition
        4
        • Abstract Architecture Composition I 01 hour 14 min
          FULL FREE LESSON
        • Art Pavilion Part I – Abstract Art Composition 02 hour 28 min
        • Sensitive Composition I 37 min
        • Sensitive Composition II 27 min
      • Technical Logic To Your compositions
        4
        • Spatial Vision Axonometrics
        • Cube On Diagonal 58 min
        • Cube Sections And Planar Changes I 30 min
        • Cube Sections And Planar Changes II
          FULL FREE LESSON
      • Building A Profound Vision
        8
        • Interior Design Sketching 1 03 hour 38 min
        • Interior Design Sketching 2 03 hour 55 min
        • 5 Principles Of Urban Design 33 min
        • Renaissance Architecture 01 hour 20 min
          FULL FREE LESSON
        • Modernism 57 min
        • Trees And Shrubs Entourage 03 hour 12 min
        • Section 02 hour 43 min
        • Organic Architecture 1 17 min

        Self-Portrait Composition

        Intro

        Introduction

        The self-portrait composition will take your graphic and conceptual abilities to the next level.

        We will be starting off with a couple of standard objects from which we will get the building blocks of our composition… then add out own ideas on top of that and finish everything off with hatching in coloured crayons.

        The Building Blocks

        Creativity doesn’t mean you come up with things out of the blue… but rather that you are able to use pre-existing elements and shape them towards your vision.

        We will be dealing here with:
        • Two famous buildings designed by two famous architects – ZahaHadid and Renzo Piano.
        • Two of your favourite books (on architecture or misc)
        and most importantly…

        Concept Generation

        We will spend 20 minutes at most to generate a concept for our composition. This is quite important as in drawing it is not enough to just stick to the conventional.

        You need to systematically complicate your drawing by adding more layers of ‘juicy creativeness’ as well as make the whole composition simple so as to represent in drawing.

        Drawing The Writing

        When drawing in composition is not like you are just doing handwriting… you need to construct your writing in perspective just like every other volume you would construct in perspective – with perspective points as well as cast shadows and shadowed faces.

        The only difference from a simple block is that you need to add style to it… so I recommend you go for a special font as
        well… you know just to squeeze more creativity out of it.

        Line Drawing

        Again, we will use a large, crisp, confident line drawing starting off from the basic thumbnail sketch and then add more and more detail as we move on.

        We will be doing everything by freehand with the focus of filling up the page with as much info as possible. Obviously, this will be done within common sense – vertical lines still need to be perpendicular on the horizon line, beware of perspective deformations.

        Detailing = moving as far away as possible from standard box perspectives or any other type of primitive volume, sculpting in as much information as possible onto our perspectives.

        So we will go for standard construction lines following the general concept in our thumbnail sketch progression.

        Again, this will not translate perfectly as drawing a larger drawing tends to create all sorts of complications, since the thumbnail concept will change and evolve into something else.

        Then we start with the detailing… and as time permits we need to detail all volumes starting with the most important ones: adding as much information and detailing to the foreground, then maybe to the vertical dominant and some other important object in your composition.

        We also need to over-thicken the contour lines, so we get a drawing that will actually look good when hatched.

        Keep all vertical lines as close to perpendicular to the horizon line as possible!

        After detailing is done and finished, then we grab a ruler or triangle and start thickening lines.

        Cast Shadows

        Cast shadows are a must so do not forget to draw them with a60degrees triangle and a horizontal!

        Over thicken the cast shadow silhouettes so to get clarity in your drawing before moving on to the next stage.

        Coloring

        We will use the 80/20 principle in colouring… so we will start off colouring the whole composition with one colour then start adding accents with another complementary or opposite colour.

        Colour One:
        Will get the drawing looking ‘ok’, so we will have all the shadows hatched with this colour, all the materials (same as with a crayon drawing).

        SpeedUp 

        Here is a 400% speed up of the complete lesson workflow. Feel free to pause and re-watch the parts which you think are still causing you a hard time. This will help you visualise possible solutions.

        Yes, you will literally look at me blast through that part of the drawing and just by that you will feed your mind to get past your sticking point and help you create a better drawing.

        Lesson Critique

        Training Information

        Difficulty: Noobie to Intermediate

        Video Time: 2:00:55

        In this video you will learn about how to correctly construct a detailed isometric axonometric at line-drawing level. This exercise will continue in the next lesson with adding cast and volume shadows.

        TIPS

        yes

        • Develop the concept, then focus 100% on making it look good. In arch drawing concept and graphics mix together and to be honest you can have very good results with a decent concept that has excellent graphics.
        • Draw a large drawing and apply everything we learned until now – construction lines, basic graphics, cast and volume shadows.

        Common Mistakes To Avoid

        no

        • You will over-think the concept part by waiting for the ‘perfect idea’, perfect concept etc. That does not work – what you need is to get the first set of ideas you have on paper and develope those by sketching them.
        • Do not forget that half of this lesson is about concept and half is about graphics. The graphics part is fairly linear – you only need to draw large volumes and use just one color to draw the whole drawing.

        Other Resources

        [THEORY] How Learning Architectural Composition Will Get You Smarter Designs

        Download Assignment PDF
        Prev Real Life Objects Composition
        Next Descriptive Geometry Axonometrics
        Freehand Architecture

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