BOOK UPDATE

In one month from today, the book, Transparent Drawing, will be released. That is according to my publisher’s listing on CoreSource, a US distribution platform. So how do I think it will stack up? If there is one meta concept that sets my book apart, is that it provides a pathway forward. It provides a pathway to knowledge of form.

One could argue that Transparent Drawing starts where Gombrich stops. Gombrich is heavily quoted in the book, as they most clearly express their frustrations of representation, the perspective; two meta themes of the book. Yet despite all of the insightful brilliance of Art And Illusion, and The Story of Art, there is no pathway forward.

And I’ll just list a few other titles, all of which which I have read and heavily annotated, after the book text was final, in no particular order.

Goel. Sketches of Thought. 1995. Incredible synthesis of computer visual computation, cognition, etc., as they relate to sketching as problem solving. Architectural sketches are analyzed as they relate to the Computational Theory of the Mind.

Goodman. Languages of Art. 1968. The gold standard by which we understand the symbol systems of our various art languages: music, painting, dance, words, drawing, etc. There is a critical discussion of images and pictures, and the symbolic limitations of perspective, etc.

Alexander. Notes on the Synthesis of Form. 1964. Provides a method for designing beyond cultural limitations, by the utilization of a highly detailed and overlapping classification system which correlates the design problem and the design solution.

Evans. The Projective Cast. 1995. An wonderfully detailed and contoured theoretical study of perspective, representation, geometry, painting, sketching, etc.

Choma. Études for Architects. 2018. A series of pedagogical exercises, or games, that architects can play as a pathway to form making. Some of the operations include paper folding, analogue drawing, model making, etc.

Jenkins. Drawn to Design. 2013. A tour de force promulgation of hand drawing as a tool to analyze existing buildings. There is a combination of plan, section, elevation, isometric and perspective (some transparent) drawings.

In the book, I acknowledge immediately that I am no academic. I don’t do statistical analysis. I don’t teach at Harvard or anywhere else. I don’t conduct cognitive tests. The style of my writing would not satisfy any academic journal. With that orientation, it is only natural that I would put together something that tries to provide a useful path forward.

You tired of all this theory? To say that another way, you want to put the theory of all these authors to use? You want to know what to do? Then pick up a pencil, and generate forms with Form Combine, Automatic Form, Draw at the Boundary of Form, etc. Try the Assemblies One Wash Contour, Woven Drawing, One Line One Wash, etc. Just do this and new mental vistas will be opened. Again, all you really need is a piece of paper, a pencil and a bit of wash (if you don’t have anything else, use coffee.)

The common thread of all the books listed above, as well as the books listed in the bibliography, is that we all need ways of getting out of the cultural ruts that we are in. We all do. What I have tried to do is just that. With any luck, Transparent Drawing will provide a readily accessible pathway for readers to just start drawing so as to open their minds to a fresh understanding of form.

If nothing else, they might, for once, Draw Like A Byzantine.