Hey, Eric here with 30X40 Design Workshop, in this video, I’m going to walk through
a few essential tips you can use to improve your architectural drawing technique.
We’ll start with what I think is the most important one: line weight.
Line weight is simply how thick or thin the lines on the page are.
Line weight in drawing actually exploits a natural phenomenon known as atmospheric perspective
where objects which are closer to us are rendered in higher contrast and appear darker to our
eyes.
The farther something is from you the more atmosphere between you and the object which
reduces contrast, reduces color saturation and detail; all which have the combined effect
of lightening things in the background.
Architectural drawings, which are primarily two-dimensional, look more natural when we
exploit this effect and using a variety of line weights mimics it pretty convincingly.
Consider for a moment how you react to a lecture delivered in a monotone voice.
It’s boring right?
You stop listening because there’s no texture or color or interest; no emotion.
Line weights are like inflection in speaking, they create depth, hierarchy, and clarity
in our drawings.
They signal what’s important, tell the viewer where to look and they organize the information
on the page.
And this applies to both sketches and technical drawings alike.
So, how can you use them?
Well, thick lines in a drawing carry a lot of weight.
They show what’s most important, typically what the drawing is cutting through, what’s
closest to the viewer in the foreground, silhouettes we want to call attention to and they can
also signify heavy materials like stone or concrete for example.
Thin lines by contrast are fainter and appear farther away - in the background.
Use thin line weights to render textures, lighter materials and generally highlight
less important objects or supporting information.
In between the two are medium line weights, which make up the middle ground of the drawing.
If we simply distill drawings into foreground, middle ground and background this is a good
basic starting point for selecting line weights.
For sketches I use three weights at a minimum: a lead pencil, an ultra fine point Sharpie,
and a Sign pen.
So, a fine light grey, a medium black, and a thick, heavy black.
Each of these can be further varied by using thicker or double strokes, or by varying the
pressure applied in the case of the pencil.
Or, you might also use a harder or softer lead.
To add even more variety, we use dashed or dotted lines to represent hidden objects or
to suggest special centerings, things like that.
Now, a couple of quick tips.
Pay attention to how you move your pen or pencil.
You always want to pull the pen or pencil along the page, not push it.
Larger, more fluid motions are preferable to small ones.
Move your arm in a fluid motion, don’t just pivot at the wrist.
Lock the wrist to your arm and move the pen or pencil with your entire arm.
The best thing you can do is to be confident in the stroke on the page, you can even add
a little waver in it which gives it that imperfect, sketchy quality.
I recommend intentional longer strokes over short dashes.
Corners are important to getting you the look of architectural sketches right; corner lines
should overlap just a bit.
Be careful not to cut them short as that just sort of looks sloppy.
Just a little overlap lends it a crisp, intentional feel.
And one last thing: for sketching media I prefer trace to almost anything else unless
I’m traveling or hiking and then I’ll use a sketchbook.
Architects use tracing paper because design is naturally an iterative process.
If you make a mistake on the base layer, simply roll out another sheet and sketch over it.
Layer upon layer will help you refine your ideas and your sketching style and it should
remind you that sketches don’t have to be perfect.
You want to optimize for results, rather than perfection.
Now, I like to begin with the lightest line work in graphite and block everything in the
drawing out first defining the composition and major shapes.
The lightest lines serve as your layout lines and background information.
You can use these to set grid lines, draw perimeter outlines, basically anything in
the background and places you may want to fill in with more detail later.
Keep these loose but intentional.
Once the light line work is done, begin layering on your medium line weights.
These will make up most of the drawing and are closer to you than the background information
you just sketched.
This is everything in the middle ground of the drawing.
I’ll usually outline the major window openings shown in elevation, then the cuts through
doors or windows.
Maybe floor planes or stairs and railings in the distance, figures in section, sight
lines, the trees outside, vegetation.
When that’s complete, I move on to the thickest lines.
Thick line weights outline the perimeter of whatever the drawing is cutting through.
I also use them for building outlines, and anything I want to emphasize.
In a plan sketch this would be the outer perimeter of the walls, in a section, the cut line of
the walls, floors, ceiling and roof planes, and in a site plan the overall building outline
or a silhouette in a perspective.
Once it’s looking like something, you can come back and add in textures.
I’ll do this using the lead pencil for finer detail and light accents, indicating fasteners
or vegetation indications or furniture too and the ultra fine point Sharpie I’ll use
for concrete or heavier materials.
When you’re done, squint your eyes.
If you’re able to see different information - that is - darker lines jump out - you know
you’re on the right track.
Now ask yourself, “Is it the right information?”
“Is it saying the things I want it to say?”
It should make sense to you and add clarity to the drawing not be confusing.
Do like materials have like renderings and similar line weights?
Ultimately, you’ll have to experiment to develop your own style but the goal is to
begin adding depth to your drawing and line weights are a real shortcut for doing this.
Now, when we transition to digital drawing on the computer, these techniques still apply.
I use a rudimentary form of AutoCAD, but it doesn’t matter if you’re using REVIT,
ArchiCAD, Draftsight, or SketchUp, or whether they’re never printed and only viewed on
screen: your drawings need to utilize different line weights.
If every line on the page has the same value and weight you’re doing it wrong.
A drawing that looks good will communicate your ideas better.
Begin by subdividing each drawing into foreground, middle ground and background, and use – at
a minimum - three line weights to communicate depth.
Next up is shade and shadow.
I use shading on nearly every drawing to indicate layering of systems, glazing, and changes
in surfaces or materials.
Shading two-dimensional drawings can aid in someone’s understanding of the relationships
between elements.
On floor plans, the shading that fills wall assemblies we refer to as: poche and it doesn’t
always have to be black.
I use a gray tone, which not only conserves ink, but – I think – is easier on the
eyes.
I’ll use differing values of gray in all my CAD drawings, generally ten percent for
light toning, twenty percent for medium backgrounds, sixty percent for medium tones and eighty
percent for the darkest for things like filling in the walls on floor plans.
Shading works in conjunction with varying line weights to add depth.
When you’re sketching, I find the best way to shade is with a set of gray markers – either
warm or cool gray.
I’ve put the ones I use in the info card above.
In CAD you’ll use hatches or built-in rendering effects like ambient shadows to create shade
and shadow or you can fake them in Photoshop using adjustment layers and masks.
Scale and entourage.
Setting the building in proper context helps the viewer understand the overall size of
your work in relation to something else of known size.
For scale, we all understand the human proportion, so people - in silhouette – are an easy
first choice.
Vehicles are good too, especially if you’re designing for them in let’s say a boat house,
or a garage or site plan.
Entourage is basically anything you add to your drawing to give it life, to set the stage
or introduce action.
Furniture, equipment, vegetation, skies, animals, birds, foreground objects, and backgrounds.
For me, entourage can even help incite ideas about how to move a design forward.
Backgrounds and foregrounds add depth to the drawing.
Now, I’ve put a few links to the entourage resources that I like in the description below.
Now let’s look at a few of my architectural drawings to show you these techniques in practice.
The layout of the page is organized to correlate the elevation views with the floor plan views.
So, at the top I have the elevation views, and you’ll notice that the line weights
and types have all been selected to highlight what’s important.
The silhouette and the ground cut line get the darkest weights, then there’s shadow
on the wood storage area and eaves and the projections like the barn doors.
The windows are all shaded too and I like doing this as it accurately simulates the
real-world experience of architecture in the daytime where we perceive windows as dark
planes.
Layered behind the elevations I’m using the atmospheric perspective technique to indicate
the wooded context of the structure, which helps to set the building in three-dimensional
space.
Notice the line weight at the roof for a second.
The front edge is thick and then at the rake end, it tapers from being thick at the front
eave edge to thin at the ridge.
Note too, the use of dashed lines for sliding doors or pivot points on the awning window
or the hidden foundation.
The base flashing is shaded a different tone than the glass and I’ve added a scale Corbusier
Modulor man too.
Together these effects make the building silhouettes stand out.
Moving over to the plans, we see that the outer wall edge which is the extent of what
we’re cutting through is assigned the thickest line weight.
From there I’ll use lighter line weights to indicate thicknesses of wall materials,
like framing and finishes as well as windows and doors.
On floor plans and elevations I’ll usually assign materials like wall shingles, floor
boards, tile and decking very light line weights – usually a ten percent screened gray tone
on a hatch layer.
And, furniture gets a place in most of my plans as it indicates use and scale, but I’ll
use a lighter line weight for it.
Shading on the floor plan here indicates the concrete finish and helps set off the furniture
layout a little bit.
You’ll see that I like to separate the notation on my drawings from the line work using red
as it’s another way of creating clarity and hierarchy in a drawing.
This could also be done using shades of gray if you’d like too.
I vary the line weight of the notations too, see the detail indicators?
They have thicker lines in places as do the door and window tags.
It’s a slight difference, but it feeds into the overall hierarchy of the drawing.
Does it pass the squint test?
Now, I think it does, but see what you think.
What do you think could be improved?
In the end, it’s not about copying my drawing style or anyone else’s.
It’s about developing your own and the best way to do that is by seeking out the architectural
drawings you like and try and replicate their results.
Study their commonalities, how do they differ from the way you draw?
Some of my favorites are found in the Detail in Contemporary Residential architecture books
or Detail magazines; all the German stuff.
See the info card above.
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channel and lets me know I’m making the things you’re interested in.
Cheers!