Art Class Titled \"Sketching,\" I Really Did

¶ … art class titled "Sketching," I really did not know what that meant. I did not know if we would be drawing lifelike figures, other objects, or if we would learn about proportion and light. At first, our class began with our sketching simple shapes like cones and cubes. We then progressed to more complex objects like still life, which was one of the most enjoyable projects to me. In addition, during class, we work as a team to help each other which is very helpful to me. I am able to look at other classmate's work, make suggestions, and in turn get feedback on my own drawings.

I did not enjoy working with figures, not because of any moral or religious objections, but because of the difficulty. My major is architecture, so I am more comfortable with geometric shapes than free form figures. When we finished figures, we moved to one point, two points, and then multiple point perspectives. We are now working on the final project, which is sketching a hotel lobby and then the rooms based on a realistic perspective of the building and structure. I thought this would be incredibly difficult, but it was interesting for many reasons: the use of just pencils and sketch paper, learning to shade to form shadows and perspective, learning about light, and also learning to visualize something in my head and then work with that vision.

The project also helped me think critically since we had to use interior design magazines for our ideas. We took those ideas, added some of our own, and learned how to connect the two together. For my own final project, I am trying to use a combination of luxury and modern, so I chose the Kempinski Hotel Group. Regardless of the location, the design of these hotels is simple and modern for the lobby, but luxurious and unique to the culture in the rooms. I used ideas from my own country to find ways to make the room unique.

I have learned that when one sketches, we should first look at the size of the room, the size of the furnishings (furniture, paintings, plants, etc.) so that we can understand the concept of the design. When I am relaxed it is easier for me since then I look at the room as a whole and stop stressing about the exact shape of lines or shadows. This is actually the most difficult part for me, because a small mistake can ruin the entire project. For example, when I sketch the room and want to understand the relationship between the distances of objects, I draw a small line. If I am not careful, though, this smears or becomes too messy to use, and then the project does not look the way I imagined. My second risk is using nested forms because I need to be careful and shade the nearest form thicker, and then progressively use thinner shading as I move away from the object. When working on the hotel piece, just this part took over two hours.