SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT

NAME: Randall Martin Gustaf

STUDENT ID NO: 0323276

WORD COUNT: 721

ENGLISH 1 (ELG 30505)

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: PROCESS ESSAY

LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA

SUBMISSION DATE: 11th MAY 2015

The definition of sketching simply means a quick and hastily rendered drawing; essentially giving features to preliminary work without going into great detail. Sketching is one the best ways to communicate ones idea through some form of visual aesthetics. This is especially true for an architectrather than explaining ideas to someone in a sloppy manner, one could present their ideas through digital or manual means. Sketching can be a very processed-induced activity that also helps with developing visual skills for a more accurate perceptive translation.

Among all of the utensils that can be found in the kitchen, I have chosen to sketch and elaborate on a traditional weighing scale This is mainly because it is a utensil often taken for granted as opposed to other more popular kitchen apparatuses, such as egg beaters, frying pans, and meat cleavers. The weighing scale can be good platform for those who are just learning to cook as this utensil allow us to accurately weigh the ingredients needed for making a specific dish or dessert. This is especially the case when baking cakes or other pastry goods. There are many designs of kitchen weighing scales that are available on the market: some being of a very high aesthetic design, while some are simple and has basic functionality. The utensil chosen is built from several different materials including plastic, metals, and glass. Therefore, there would be varying textures on each surface of the weighing scale. The contrasting surface texture gives the utensil multiple sensory stimulus such as 'smooth' for the metal and glass parts, and 'rough' for plastic surfaces.

For the sketching process, the following stationaries mentioned were used to draw the kitchen utensils: pencils, an eraser, rulers and a few blank A4 papers (in cases where I did drafts for the sketch). The tonal value varies in my sketch because I chose graphite pencils from a range of 2H to 6B, which respectively means hardest to softest lead available. For the rough sketching, a HB pencil was used because the value is lighter but had enough density in the lead to erase mistakes with ease. I began my sketch with a reference image I got from Google because I was unable to acquire a weighing scale at that moment. To begin the sketch, an isometric box was firstly drawn to act as a compositional guide for sketching the kitchen utensil. After the rough drafting was done, a 2B pencil was used to add more depth to into the lines of the preliminary drawing for a more detailed look. An eraser was used to remove all the unwanted lines and smudges to neater outcome.

As observed from the reference image, the light source comes from the upper left corner of the picture. To translate this, more complex styles of shading, such as hatching, were achieved by using various types of pencils with softer lead for the appearance of darker tones in my drawing. Emphasising the contours of my sketch was an important factor to me, as I felt it helped depicted a clearer idea for what a person perceives through my drawing. Upon analysing the reference image, I noticed the object was photographed from a two-point perspective. The theory that follows helped me imagine two vanishing points stretching far beyond the picture plane I was utilising, therefore also assisted me in executing the sketch in a more precise manner.

The sketch took me several tries before I felt satisfied with the outcome, so collectively it took me a total of two and a half hours. When drawing, I have realised that most the time was spent into the details of the sketch, such as shading and defining the contours of the weighing scale. That aside, I also felt pleased when I completed the final sketch. When I look back at previous drafts, I saw that the multiple trials helped me improve the form and shape of my sketch every time I started a new copy. From this example, it seems the thesis comes into play again because of how sketching frequently gradually helps develop better perceptive skills necessary for drawing according to what the physical eyes see. So would I do it again? On the most of it, the answer is 'yes' because of the great progress I see in myself due to this exercise.