April 20, 2020
This week, Dick Hudgens gave his students another opportunity to draw Kenworthy Hall, a plantation home built in 1860 right outside of Marion, Alabama. The 3rd-years found HABS drawings online and used these documents to draft and watercolor a longitudinal section through the home. Here are just a handful of the students’ incredible sections:
April 13, 2020
This week, Dick Hudgens sent his students on a quick trip back to Hale County (digitally, of course). The 3rd-years drafted and watercolored the J.W. Otts House, located in Greensboro, Alabama. These drawings keep getting better each week! Here are some beautiful examples of their hard work:
March 23, 2020
This week’s History Class focused on Kenworthy Hall in Marion, Alabama. Because 3rd-year students are unable to physically visit the home, Dick has provided them with HABS (Historic American Building Survey) drawings of each building. Students are using these drawings–predominantly elevations–to draft their own versions. Here is an assortment of this week’s watercolor sketches:
March 16, 2020
Studio and Cabinet Class were not the only 3rd-year courses that converted to remote learning this past week. Dick Hudgens also restructured his history class into an isolation-friendly form. Each week, the 3rd-year students will submit water-colored sketches to Dick that he will then red line and send back to the students. Take a look at some of the first week’s beautiful drawings of the Givhan House and Sturdivant Hall:
September 13, 2019
The Drawing and Seeing workshop, by Frank Harmon and Dan Wheeler, taught the importance of drawing in the architectural process. They did not teach an ideal way of drawing, but rather to pay attention to what one looks at and how to use drawing as a way to see. The goal from the workshop was not to become more technical or precise sketchers by drawing what one thinks something ought to look like, but to become better at capturing and communicating the essence and context of the beautiful things and places that surround each of us.
Frank Harmon is a professor at NC State and, for years, has been coming to Newbern to help teach a new generation of architects how to see the world and recognize the common beauty around us through sketching. Before beginning his own firm, Frank Harmon Architect, in Raleigh, North Carolina, he worked in New York and London. Follow his beautiful blog of thoughts and drawings called Native Places here.
Dan Wheeler has been bringing his infectious enthusiasm to Rural Studio since 2001. Since then, he has been teaching students the process of drawing and to appreciate the wonderful differences in how each person draws. Dan co-founded Wheeler Kearns Architects in Chicago and also teaches at UIC School of Architecture.
Going into the workshop, many students considered themselves poor sketchers and were shy about showing their “bad” work to others. This workshop gave students confidence in their abilities to depict their surroundings and visually describe their ideas to others using a variety of mediums. It was a thoroughly enjoyable process of making drawings without focusing so much on making them “perfect.” Nobody sees the world the same, so nobody sketches the same. Throughout the workshop, each student noticed something different in the same thing, be it light, shadow, color, nature, or the context. These differences allowed students to gain valuable insight into how each person sees the world slightly differently.
The intended outcome was to learn how to use hand-drawing as a larger part of the design process, especially while working toward thesis projects at Rural Studio.
