TACTILE TRACES
Nicolaides in The Natural Way to Draw describes the essential drawing phenomenon as tracing with your eye. That is, you move your pencil in the same manner that your eye sees the object that you are drawing. This is of course what we have typically called hand eye coordination; the act of drawing is seeing with your pencil. And as you draw, you are in essence touching the object.
On this same theme, the authors of The Perspective Hinge describe tactile traces as the basic foundation of architectural representation. They go on to ask, “Can a recording of traces again be translated (rather than transcribed) in built architectural projects?” p328.
While it goes without saying that you should not use tracing in any of your drawings, both of these authors’ use of the word traces is more prosaic. If you will, we can certainly understand an architectural drawing as a trace of ideas. When drawn transparently, these overlapping and integrated traces become far more interesting and comprehensible.
The lines that capture 3 dimensional space in 2 dimensional drawing are complex perceptions. Kurt does a beautiful job of guiding the viewer through complex architectural mass in a way that is aesthetically satisfying, deceptively simple and spontaneous. These apparently quick watercolors are the result of a lot of study and hard work.