I started as a sketcher as computers were called calculators in the office way back when, and we didn't have any computers during my training until post grad. I'm now a sketchupper and use a stylus not a mouse.

I mostly share the same expiriences aas Jason. For presentations in school it would always be a back and forth; sketch to basic CAD outlines, CAD outlines emblemished by hand, and then new hand draft from the CAD files scanned back in to give the last bit of touch ups in Photoshop.

didn't touch a computer during my undergrad (degree in '99). worked at a few firms before getting my MArch and used the computer a lot (AutoCAD, Form Z, Max, etc.). personally i think that the computer is strees too much in school. during school you should focus on design and not trying to learn and understand a computer program. i feel fortunate that i learned how to draw by hand. even though i spend most of my time behind a computer screen now; i still try to get the hand drawn feel in my CAD produced drawings - no i don't do "squiggle" that sketch-up pukes out or "touch" them up in photoshop. also, is there anything better than ink on mylar. i get a semi just thinking about it.

that last line is disturbing

I agree with both accounts. Mylar on ink is great, if you can manage not to smear it all over the place, but at the same time it does not give me a semi, and I think jh may need to see someone for this problem. I started with CAD in high school. I think it was R10 back then. My first few years of college were spent hand drafting and hand rendering (which is a priceless skill to have, I might add). Now my presentations vary widely. Some are photorealistic and done completely in the computer, using combinations of AutoCAD 2007, 3Ds Max (I think I have 7) and Photoshop CS2, while some are nearly all hand drawn and rendered. I think the ones that work best, however, are a blend of the two.

let us resist the sexual urges that drafting nostalgia brings and god forbid that we remenis on anything pre AutoCAD R14.

I think of this stuff to prevent ejaculation!

I graduated a year ago, and there are many questions about this profession. In school, we learned design, we did hand sketch a lot. After working in a office, we mainly use CAD. I understand how this profession works, when we don't have much experience, then we do lots of modelings, renderings for the firm. After we get some experience we can do some CAD. Then we probably stick on that for a long time. People like us either holding a MA. degree or 5yrs BA. degree, but we study that for being a professional architect, not draftman. But some how we either stick on dong bathroom and kitchen drawings for decades or being a renderer for long time. I really think people should let fresh grad touch different fields, even in school, should let students know how the system really work and practice it in school as earlier as possible. Back to the point of sketch and computer, I think we really should use both, and in prelimilary design always should use hand sketch. Then as the idea being developed computer should help for detailing and clarify the ideas. But now, lots of people only can use one of these, either sketch or computer. We are being trained to be professional, we are not the fine art people, and also not a draftman. otherwise why should we stay in school? cause we know and we learn sth that has value to this world and people study business they don't know. And now the reality is kicking us back to the start point. we either can do sketch, or CAD for long time. By the time we change couple of jobs and earn some experience, then we've thrown all the design theories and fresh ideas back to school. Meanwhile, people study architecture emerge to different routes,to be land developer, graphics etc.... It's ok to people who find out they like to do different professions instead of architecture, however it's sad when you see some people doing those jobs, not becuz they really want to do it, but it happens they 've been accumilating experience for those jobs, then it's better off to change their profession, or because being a business person is better pay to be an architect, and it takes short period of time to get to their career high. Then you would start questioning what is going on in this field. Then you can understand it's not only Sketch or CAD problem, in fact, this leads to a much bigger question to this profession.

Innaresting points...and in some cases rather scary. I noticed in my education we were having various CAD systems shoved down our throats in the first year, before we'd really begun to start learning how to design or even vaguely get a handle on what it was we wanted to design/what we liked/why/who that frank lloyd whatever chappie was...

A mixture of hand-drawn and CAD was the ideal I came to, deciding what information you want to get across and using them both depending on relative strengths and goals. End of the day, they're merely tools, the underlying design thinking (and effective communication of this, hopefully to even non-architects) being far more important, I haven't seen many people developing any kind of feel for spaces or ability to be able to visualise a design if they are sitting at a computer from day 1.

gtodohoo; interesting points, not denying there aren't wider ranging issues, and CAD is invaluable if you need the huge number of copies of drawings/differing levels of detail to send to different contractors/clients/so on...It wasnt so much a PROBLEM of CAD or sketching, rather curiosity as to what people found worked for them, in terms of developing a design sensibility/eye for forms, etc. - the "is an architectural education" thread contains many of the wider-ranging discussions on the whole teaching v. architectural practice bit, a comment in the thread that someone could generally tell from their interns who had learned on CAD and who through sketching made me wonder what the differences were.

I developed something similar to Cuervo Muerto's multiple scanning process only after being told first to ditch my overly scribbly, woolen- headed sketching for something more tangible (CAD) at the second to last crit .Then, when producing CAD'ed up drawings for the final crit was asked where all my nice hand-drawings had gone...

James - consistancy in crits has always been elusive, you should have shown both and cover alll angles.

i started off uni in fine arts, and made a (poor) living for a year in japan as a painter (i was teaching myself sumi and made money painting portraits in watercolor), so you might think i prefer to sketch...but in first year undergrad i was right on to those gods-awful early macs (1989-1990), and taught myself minicad cuz not a student or prof in the faculty had ever seen a desktop computer before that year...

so while i can paint and draw very well i don't have any urges to render elevations by hand...on the other hand i do mix psd, hand dwgs and photos of models regularly when designing and for presentation. and i always carry a sketchbook and pen with me on subway to design, and to site to communicate with contractor.

i think i was lucky to have begun archi-school when computers were just getting started as accessable design tools, so the profs never got antsy when i used them and no one felt threatened. the computer was just an experimental new tool. and that is sorta how i still see it.

My program included only 1 required course in digital technologies, so we learned only the very basics of CAD for a week or two, then it was up to us individually to decide whether or not to employ that in our studios.

Personally, I stayed away from CAD for designing because I find it to be much too sterile. When you design by hand through sketching, I feel that the design becomes much more than just lines. You can experiment with different drawing media which, in my case, always led to new discoveries as far as textures, scales, etc. were concerned, that I wouldn't have found had I used CAD.

Students who did most of their designing on the computer could work a bit faster, since revising ideas included lots of cutting/pasting to carry over original ideas, but I just didn't see much energy in their designs. I was always more impressed with someone who came to a crit with one or 2 amazing hand-drawings, than someone who came in with 20 computer drawings showing every possible angle of this and that.

mmm....I should have counted on consistancy in the crits, should've known it by that point - the finished drawings were almost all CAD and pretty strile looking. Luckily I had some pretty full sketch books to further illustrate my ideas - would've been nice to get it all together for the final..I also think my sketchbooks need to get fuller and exhibit more experimentation, not helped so far by a general unwillingness to put pen to nice clean n' white paper. Maybe I need ot think about a smaller, pocket(as in, actual pocket) sized sketchbook for continual use (s in teh rather interesting sketchbooks thread)

From the other side of the globe so this is not a promo assuming most readers are in U.S. but on another thread http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=42129_0_42_0_C I told readers about my private "draw Like an Architect" face-to-face freehand drawing school.
Big demand from recent graduates and archiutects below 30yrs, hardly any "oldies" and interstingly two thirds are female.
Link; www.art-architecture.com.au

Cheeers...and keep sketching, whatever the theories.

draw, do you accept /post other's work on your website ?

nevermore...I can but haven't so far due to other Univ. teaching interests and architectural stuff keeping from my Web site.
If you or any others on forum would like to send a jpg image with a few notes about yourself and the drawing I will see if I can include it in an "International Gallery"??
For the moment desirable max image size is 900x420 but would prefer say half that (450x420) so I can get 2 images per page/frame.
Am revamping Site over Xmas to clean it up, increase frame size etc.
Cheers....

That would be a nice idea.
Email me when u start ur international link, I can send u very good examples of hand drawn arch work.


Cheers ! AUTOCAD haters of the world unite !

Hurrah!

Very interesting site, unfortunately the wrong continent...

Second the international sketch gallery idea, seems a very good idea.

@all...why not send images anyway, ill just do other "Gallery" pages from the site template ...15-20minutes....no problem....might motivate me!
Mailing address is in the Web site...don't like splashing it around too much.