UCO Design Foundations - Birdhouse in Your Soul

Project 2 - Birdhouse in your Soul

Introduction

In both interior design and graphic design it is rare that you will draw existing scenes or objects. More likely, you will draw from your imagination while using imagery of existing objects for reference. For example, you can draw a dragon by using images of snakes, lizards, and bats as references. You can draw an entirely original interior but use images of existing tables, light fixtures, and chairs for reference.

Showing two things at once: How can you use a single drawing to communicate an enclosed space? Should you show the outside of the building? Should you show the inside? Or... is it possible to do both at the same time? With this project we’re going to do just that.

Assignment

Draw THREE birdhouses as a single scene. The biggest house will have the front walls removed to show the interior. You should show exterior textures like brick, clapboards, stucco, wood grain, glass, wallpaper or other materials.

The goal of this project is to combine constructed drawing techniques (like the Exercises) and observational drawing techniques (like the Values in Value project). It is an opportunity to use everything you have learned this semester to draw a realistic scene from your imagination. You should show your ability to draw multiple objects in perspective using a wide value range. You should add surface details to make your drawing look as realistic as possible. You MAY add organic forms like birds, clouds, and vegetation... but not at the expense of an accurate constructed drawing with surface details.

Process

1- Draw a box in a two-point perspective scene. Make sure that your drawing is asymmetrically balanced by placing it slightly off center on your page. You will be drawing the interior of this box- this will be the focal point of your drawing. This is actually a bit harder than it sounds.

2- Draw the two other boxes. Make sure they fit your composition appropriately. Once your overall setup is placed, move on to the next step.

3- Research residential architecture in addition to actual birdhouses to expand the level of detail (perches, openings, windows, shutters, doors, window sills, eaves, soffits, and other exterior details).

4- Add to or subtract from the boxes to turn them into birdhouses. It should be primarily combinations of geometric primitives like cubes, extruded triangles (gables), cylinders (barrel vaults and columns), and pyramids (hip roof) just like the drawing you created for Exercise 4. You may want to use multiple sheets of tracing paper until you have your exterior form designed. The details in the next steps will make your drawing sing or devolve into a confusing mess... SO make sure your houses are unique, but keep the design simple.

5- Draw in the overhangs, openings, and other structural details on the individual sheets of tracing paper. Treat each house as an individual drawing, but don’t stray from the perspective position that you worked out in the first step.

6- Draw in the primary surface details like clapboards, bricks, and shingles on the individual sheets of tracing paper. It is important that these details are in perspective correctly.

7- Add interior details to the first (probably biggest) birdhouse. You can approach this as a realistic version of the interior of a birdhouse (e.g. sticks, grass, and other natural materials), or you can create a human interior environment for your bird. The interior is similar to the work you did for Exercise 5.

8- Transfer the line drawings of your birdhouses to a single sheet of drawing paper. Make sure that you have not wandered from your original perspective drawing from step 1. A light table is a very useful tool at this stage.

9- Now add value (shading) to your line drawing to increase realism. Reference images of the structural details and surface materials in context to help with shading. This is an exterior environment, so the sun is the primary light source with plenty of reflected light from all directions. Use what you learned from the Values in Value project. Make sure to use the entire range of values from paper (white) to darkest 8B. Note that some of the lines from your line drawing may need to be erased to create highlights.

10- Clean up any stray marks, trim out the drawing to the specified size, and mount on black presentation board.

Materials

Pencil drawing on Strathmore drawing paper.

Deliverables

13” x 18” image mounted on 15” x 20” black presentation board, flapped of THREE birdhouses.

Value - 100pts

Points are earned by accurate perspective, high level of detail, wide value range, high level of craft, and following instructions including meeting all of the specifications in the project brief (this page).

Rubric

Student Examples (Note: the Project Was slightly different Last year)