ARC Draws

Inside ARC from
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Picasso once said this - he said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. So why is this?

Sir Ken Robinson "Do schools kill creativity?" Ted Talks Daily

From my own experience, freedom of thought in any creative ambition whether it is in architecture, writing, art, design, leads to fulfilling outcomes. On the other hand, there are times when creativity can get stifled by outside stressors, criteria, expectations, criticism, rationale. It’s a challenge to pull away from this mindset, particularly in a professional setting, and return to the creative, personal expression we had when we were children. When I think about Ken Robinson’s question, I imagine that we are educated into practicality, efficiency, standardization, familiarity when we step into the office. With these certainties in place, we stop drawing. We fear the feeling of criticism. We become timid. Our departure from drawing and sketching over time leads to a form of muscle atrophy by the time we become adults. If we can reserve time for this critical exploration and deep thinking, perhaps we can bring our work one inch closer to original, thought-provoking, and rewarding design ideas.
 

So, can we just start by drawing again?

 

These ideas inspired a ten-week drawing series in our office during which most people were working from home full-time. We dove into thematic drawing topics which increased in complexity over time and aimed to embolden each person. Each person in our office had a duration of thirty minutes to loosen their thinking and allow their mind to unravel. The drawing series was designed to develop a cross-training between our everyday work tasks and this dedicated “create, draw, and explore” time within our work week.

WEEK 1: LINE

Tools: Black pen on sketch paper.

 

Prompt: The first week began by drawing contour lines that were carefully spaced to create a sense of mass and volume of a lemon. The exercise advanced into a drawing of a hand using this same method. The challenge was to draw a line knowing what the next line was going to be.

Ray Paradis - Lemon contours
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2 - Ray Paradis - Lemon contours r
Sarah Vogel - Hand contours
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3 - Sarah Vogel - Hand contours r

WEEK 2: COLOR

Tools: Watercolor, colored pencil, and marker on mixed media paper.

 

Prompt: We looked at intensely colorful photographs of built and landscape forms. We discovered unexpected color collisions through the drawing media.

 

Porpla Kittisapkajon
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1 - Porpla Kittisapkajon
Victor Agran
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2 - Victor Agran
Mike DelValle
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3 - Mike DelValle
Jay Young
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4 - Jay Young

WEEK 3: FORM

Tools: Black pen on sketch paper

 

Prompt: We started the exercise with a routine drawing we see often as designers- a plan, section, or elevation. The drawing was of a familiar place and we continuously altered it through a series of actions – rotate, push or pull, dislocate, tilt, reflect. The familiar turned into something foreign.

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Chris Bowers
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2- Chris Bowers
Mike DelValle
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3 - Mike DelValle
Bohseung Kong
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4 - Bohseung Kong
Matt Lewis
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5 - Matt Lewis
Maria McMorran
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6 - Maria McMorran
August Rulewich
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7 - August Rulewich
Rob Zverina
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9 - Rob Zverina

WEEK 4: VALUE

Tools: Blend of watercolor, pencil, pen on sketch paper.

 

Prompt: Individuals created still-life collections with objects in their homes and developed drawings and articulated depth through light and shadow.

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1 - Rebecca Ray 2
Bohseung Kong
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2 - Bohseung Kong
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5 - Victor Agran small

WEEK 5: FIGURE

Tools: Combination of pencil and pen on sketch paper.

 

Prompt: The drawing exercise was to describe movement and form through figure drawing. We looked at dancers, fashion designers, sports, cartoons, musicians as inspiration.

Maria McMorran
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1 - Maria McMorran
Alisa Nagano
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2 - Alisa Nagano
Christopher Angelakis
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3 - Christopher Angelakis
Ellie Wong
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4 - Ellie Wong
Porpla Kittisapkajon
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5 - Porpla Kittisapkajon
Shreya Shah
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6 - Shreya Shah

WEEK 6: PATTERN

Tools: Combination of pencil, pen, watercolor on sketch paper.

 

Prompt: We investigated the richness in ancient architectural spaces through patterns and rhythms. We studied their structural arrangements at various scales by zooming into the façade patterns of the Hawa Mahal, the interlacing colonnades of the Mosque at Cordoba, the three-dimensional views of the stepwell Nagar Kund in Rajasthan.

Victor Agran
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1 - Victor Agran
Aaron Fowle
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2 - Aaron Fowle
Elaina Burke
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3 - Elaina Burke
Chris Bowers
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4 - Chris Bowers
Wesley Ratliff
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5 - Wesley Ratliff
Peter Reiss
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6 - Peter Reiss
Jan Taylor
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7 - Jan Taylor
Jay Young
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8 - Jay Young

WEEK 7: COLLAGE

Tools: Photography, digital pen, found objects.

 

Prompt: The collage week demanded bold and free idea generation through building typologies and site combinations (gallery in a field, library in a mountain, observatory in the woods, chapel in the arctic). The compositions were made from manipulated found images and sketches.

Rebecca Ray
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1 Rebecca Ray
Christopher Angelakis
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2 - Christopher Angelakis
August Rulewich
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3 - August Rulewich
Maria McMorran
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4 - Maria McMorran
Shreya Shah
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5 - Shreya Sha
Victor Agran
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6 - Victor Agran

WEEK 8: TEXTURE

Tools: Graphite, pasta, folded paper, children’s toys, pins, clay, rope, glue, clothing hangers.

 

Prompt: During week 8, many people created and composed tactile surfaces using everyday found objects. Their black and white photographs intimately showed the variety of textures we are surrounded by.

Maria McMorran
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1 - Maria McMorran
Caitlin Walsh
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2 - Caitlin Walsh
Cathy Michalowicz
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3 - Cathy Michalowicz
Katie Archard
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4 - Katie Archard
Philip Laird
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5 - Philip Laird
Matt Lewis
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6 - Matt Lewis
Aaron Fowle
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7 - Aaron Fowle
Christopher Angelakis
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8 - Christopher Angelakis
Jan Taylor
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9 - Jan Taylor
Elaina Burke
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Elaina Burke
Jay Young
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Jay Young
Mike DelValle
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Mike DelValle
Rebecca Ray
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Rebecca Ray

WEEK 9: PERSPECTIVE

Tools: Digital pen, colored pencil, marker on sketch paper.

 

Prompt: Each person created a triptych of Cinque Terre. Each person drew from multiple points of view - the elevation, plan, perspective and arranged the drawings side-by-side.

Elaina Burke
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1 - Elaina Burke
Aaron Fowle
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2 - Aaron Fowle
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3 - Vero Rodriguez
Ellie Wong
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4 - Ellie Wong
August Rulewich
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5 - August Rulewich
Porpla Kittisapkajon
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6 - Porpla Kittisapkajon

WEEK 10: PORTRAIT

Tools: Collage, digital pen, acrylic paint, pen, watercolor, photography, Etch a Sketch.

 

Prompt: Week 10 was spent on self-reflection through self-portraits. Many people felt uncomfortable drawing themselves. It was likely the most challenging exercise yet for this reason. Our drawings reveal to us that ARC is a unique collection of designers and thinkers, artists, and creatives.

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PORTRAIT GRID - Instagram-01
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After these ten weeks, we continued drawing on more themes including places, conceptual ideas, and drawing methods - Landscape, Forgery, San Carlo, Redraw, Alhambra, Surrealism. As we continue to probe more deeply in drawing, sketching, discovering, we start to see the effects in our work and ourselves. We can free up our minds using different techniques such as collage, watercolors, mixing hand drawing with digital methods.

Many projects are starting to dip into these techniques more and more. There is more exchange of ideas and styles and less fear. Still, the most telling result of progress is the increase in engagement and contribution from different people and points of view within our staff.

Inside ARC from ARC Draws