drawing class

Every Tuesday evening, right as the sun was setting in the horizon, I’d embark on a long bike ride over to the complete opposite side of campus.

At Building W97, the Theater Arts building, I took 21M.601 (Drawing for Designers). It’s one of my favorite classes so far. There are other bloggers who have written about this class, including Waly (who focused on gesture drawing), Afeefah (who shared their favorite pieces), and Danny and Allan (who commented on the art class scene as a whole at MIT). I focus more on the struggle of drawing, a selection of my pieces, and how drawing connects to everything.

From 7 to 10pm, the class was a long three hours, but it was always so worth it. As a class, we had one goal: learn to apply line and tone to capture reality. I liked the bare bones premise because I could focus better. Additional artistic factors like color, paint, imagination, and so on would’ve made art as a whole more overwhelming, at least I know it would in the beginning for me. Instead, our class used mostly-monotone pencil, crayon, and charcoal. It was approachable: here are a few tools, now draw what you see. 

being ~bad~ at drawing

I must preface that I never thought of myself as a drawer.

In fact, for the larger part of my life, I’ve thought of myself as very bad at drawing. Like, anytime I tried to depict people, I’d end up with wonky stick figures. It was always a bit frustrating having images exist so vividly in my mind—so clear, they felt real—but they would get lost in translation to the page. One instance of this happened in high school robotics, where I tried to explain a DR4B linkage⁠01 double-reverse 4-bar linkage! they have such sleek movement. i loved building these. more info <a href="https://wiki.purduesigbots.com/hardware/lifts/dr4b">here</a>. to my teammate, and my drawing was just an atrocious overlapping of rectangles and circles that ultimately looked like nothing. This difficulty in depicting “real” things led to my interest in the “unreal.” In my free time, I’ve enjoyed abstract painting, but largely because it’s hard to mess up “abstract,” if not impossible. It was safe. Reality was always difficult to do justice.

Basically, I’ve always wanted to learn to draw, and this class was an opportunity I eagerly decided to take on. It seems this want to draw is shared amongst many MIT students, because this is one of the few classes that requires you to apply for it through a Google form (FYI: most MIT classes you can just register for, no questions asked). Gosh, I essentially wrote a love letter to drawing in my application. I badly wanted to take this class, and am so grateful I was able to. 

things i drew

Each class began with a demonstration of drawing techniques, followed by timed drawing prompts where the class applied what we learned.

Behind all of the polished class drawings, there exists many warm-ups and drafts. Every class ended off with a final piece that would be added to our portfolio. Here is a selection of mine:

inanimate objects

my first in-class drawing! i had never worked with charcoal before this and was pleasantly surprised with the result of learning that new medium.

in class, we all zoomed in on different sections of the table

for an assignment, i had to create a setup in my room. this was stuff i found and scrappily placed on my sink lol

3 views of a marble bust: front, side, and angled

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animate objects

Live models came in to pose for class a few times! It was really cool to work with real people. I wasn’t allowed to take photos, so I won’t be adding any references along with the drawings, but you get the idea.

okay so technically speaking, this was modeled off of a statue (i.e. not directly a real person), but i thought to include it here because it still ultimately depicted a human

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After one class, my friend Charlotte W. ’23 asked me what felt different between drawing a real human vs. a not-real human. This was our conversation:

Context: I worked as an 8.02 TA for Professor Dourmashkin

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rooms

for one class, i walked around the building looking for an area that was enticing to draw. this nook had really cool curvy vents.

the CEO of Intel (??? i was stunned), Pat Gelsinger, gave a talk and i took many notes. at some point, next to my list of questions to ask him, i found myself sketching out the room for fun. this summer, i'm working as a semiconductor manufacturing intern and, accordingly, i was particularly excited about this event.

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self portraits

For one assignment, I had to produce two self portraits. I decided to draw a literal piece (that spoke more to the ego) and an abstract piece (that spoke more to the id and superego). I wanted my body to be turned away, but my eyes to be on the viewer. I find myself looking back to observe things a lot, and hoped for the first portrait to reflect that. The second piece feels best left unexplained, especially considering the abstractness.

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master copies

The name captures these assignments well: I had to copy masters (select pieces and emulate them).

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everything is connected to everything

I had a lightbulb moment!

One great thing about this class is you can do 1-on-1 consultations with Professor Sharon Lacey, who is a professional artist. I went into our call full of questions.

cad (computer-aided design)

While workshopping one of my self portraits, she suggested I add “construction lines,” which are temporary lines that help anchor permanent lines. I drew vertical lines descending from the corners of my eyes, horizontal lines to enclose my lips, midlines through my forehead and nose, and many other lines to orient all the features into place. Additionally, I revisited the “Sighting Method,” a technique I learned in class where one repeatedly compares the angles and lines of objects in real life to what is being drawn. How does the angle of the eyebrow compare to the angle at which the glasses sit? Because the eyes have been moved up, how does the mouth now sit? How does the nose size compare to the eye, but also the ears and cheek? Every feature affects every other feature.

This process felt oddly familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. All of a sudden, it all connected: this was exactly like CAD. There’s literally a type of line in CAD softwares called “construction line” that functions exactly the same as the one I learned with Professor Lacey, and I voiced to her that connection. I’ve been teaching myself Fusion360 for the past year, and have found it challenging to create some intricate shapes, but it all became easier because of this drawing class.  Every skill was transferable. In addition to applying line in CAD, I also learned to use tone. Changing the view settings in Fusion360 allows me to see how shadows fall to best capture what I’m trying to depict. I came out of the class excited to 3D design objects that were previously too intimidating for me to take on.

massage therapy

Similarly, I was also reminded of my mother’s work as a massage therapist. I told Professor Lacey about a time where I felt extremely sore in my shoulder from weight lifting and asked my mother for help. She began with massaging my leg, which I was really confused by. My legs didn’t hurt at all. My mom proceeded to explain that there are nerve “lines” that run through your entire body, and they’re all connected. To get to massaging even remotely near my shoulder, she had to tend to the lines that connected to it first. The bend of your leg changes the flux of arm muscle. This fascinated me, because I always thought of components of the body as very separate entities; one can move each limb independently. However, applied to drawing, I can look at how the adjustment of one limb affects the rest of the body, even in the subtlest of ways. 

the butterfly effect

I had to mention this. The Butterfly Effect is known as the idea that small changes can ultimately lead to big changes. Mathematically, the effect has a much more deep, extensive definition. However, that’s beyond the scope of this blog, which centers more around the philosophy than the math. Edward Lorenz, the Father of Chaos Theory,⁠02 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory">one of my favorite theories EVER</a>, partly because of its engineering applications but mostly because itʻs just so beautiful. i love viewing the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_system">Lorenz Attractor,</a> which is basically a set of chaotic solutions (solutions that are super sensitive to what the initial conditions of a problem are) to the Lorenz system (a model of atmospheric convection). and the attractor, when graphed, happens to look somewhat like a butterfly, which I think is a cute coincidence of naming. first coined the term in 1972 when he shared in a lecture that “a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can produce a tornado in Texas.” In the context of life, the theory asserts that the smallest moments of the past, even ones that don’t seem to have to do anything with us, affect our present day and future. On the scale of drawing, the theory reminds me that even the tiniest of pencil strokes can make massive changes to a picture.

conclusion

I learned a lot of things from this class, both technical and non-technical.

Finally, I feel comfortable with at least attempting to draw things. Now, I find myself sketching in the margins of museum maps, my school notes, napkins, anything I can get my hands on. The class was formative to this comfort, but I’ve also come to learn the accessibility of drawing. Anyone can draw, so long as you put pencil to paper and practice. And, of course, I’ve learned that nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, is left unconnected in this world.

Source: The Tate Gallery, 1992-3