Sketching Architecture

If you don’t already know, I am an architect by profession! I have wanted to be an architect since I was ten years old, so I have a long standing obsession with buildings. These days I am no longer working as an architect, designing and documenting buildings so that they can be built. Instead I am just sketching them!

I have also a very strong interesting in the history and theory of architecture, and before I became an addicted sketcher used to spend a lot of time reading history books and drawing precise drawings of buildings that I visited on my travels.

Both my interest in understanding the design of architectural masterpieces and my day to day production of working drawings has helped me enormously now that I am sketching them.

My goal is share this architectural knowledge with you to help you improve your sketches of buildings.
I run specific sketching architecture workshops, but also love sharing my knowledge online here on my blog.

So this section of my site is devoted to sharing ideas about sketching architecture.

Please leave me a comment if there are anything you particularly want me to explain – sketch – write about!

Understanding Buildings

A lot of people equate sketching architecture with perspective. “I am no good at drawing buildings because I can’t do perspective!” they say. But there is a whole lot more to sketching buildings than mastering perspective!

I am passionate about explaining to sketchers how buildings are put together:

• how to view them as volumes and then look for additive and subtractive elements
• how to work in a structured way
• how to allow for thickness and depths.

These blog posts include some of the important principles I sketch by!

{use Understanding Buildings tag}

Featured posts

https://www.lizsteel.com/brazil-trip-my-workshop-feeling-the-edges-of-santa-rita/
https://www.lizsteel.com/a-building-i-have-to-sketch-again-in-hobart/
https://www.lizsteel.com/complex-buildings-are-fun-the-louvre/

Perspective

Many people believe that you can’t sketch architecture without being a master of perspective, and others state that you do not need it at all. “Just draw the shapes”, they say.

As an architect I have a conceptual understanding of the laws of perspective, but when I started sketching I found it hard to translate this knowledge to working in a spontaneous way in a small sketchbook. The classic perspective explanations always assume that you have an unending sheet of paper with the vanishing points fitting on the page – but in reality that never works for me . And despite wanting to achieve a certain accuracy with my lines, I have had no desire to try to replicate drawing board techniques to my sketching. So over the years I have developed a (vanishing)point-less approach to perspective!

Perspective is an incredibly useful tool; a sound understanding of it’s principles helps me see better and gives me a framework to achieve better accuracy. It is there to help, not hinder me, and it should never take away my joy of sketching. I think getting good shapes is more important than technically correct perspective.

Featured Posts
https://www.lizsteel.com/pointless-perspective-an-overview/
https://www.lizsteel.com/my-pointless-perspective-workshop-with-downloadable-handout/
https://www.lizsteel.com/sketching-street-scenes-without-persepctive/
tag: perspective

Architectural Styles

I have been interested in the history and theory of architecture for years. I used to read copious books on the subjects but these days I just sketch!

Having a working knowledge of a few basic architectural styles will help create your own shorthand for their particular features. There is an over emphasis in Baroque buildings to date on my blog, but I hope to expand this section a lot more in the near future.

Featured Posts

https://www.lizsteel.com/why-i-love-baroque-architecture-so-much/
https://www.lizsteel.com/melbourne-trip-2016-part-1-a-teaser/
https://www.lizsteel.com/sketching-inside-a-gehry-construction-site/

tag architectural styles