“To my surprise and relief, I realized over time that in sketching, mastery isn’t requisite. In fact, a preoccupation with perfection may be the greatest enemy of the freshness and spontaneity that characterize great sketches. I learned that freehand sketching isn’t about photographic realism. It isn’t about art, per se. It’s more about authenticity. It’s about being in the moment, honestly recording what’s in front of you or in your mind’s eye, and gaining a deeper awareness and appreciation of your subject or idea. Mostly, it’s about experiencing the joy of the creative dance of the mind, eye, and hand.

Something of one’s persona always emerges in a sketch. Your sketches won’t look like mine, or mine like yours. That’s beautiful. A great sketch is an unselfconscious fusion of pen and place and personality. It will have its own unique creative energy, reflective of its subject and its maker. And if you don’t draw it, that unique expression won’t be voiced. Seeing sketching as a window into one’s personal creativity underscores its value in an age when digital tools so thoroughly dominate design education. I was recently asked in an interview for a Turkish magazine whether ‘crayons or computers’ were the essential tool for design students. I responded that the essential tools were openness, imagination, and the creative impulse. Then, the question becomes, how does one nurture and develop creative capacity? At the beginning of the creative process, one needs to be able to generate a lot of ideas quickly, and to be able to record and communicate a flow of ideas as they occur. Spontaneous freehand sketching remains the most efficient and effective way to do that. Very soon afterward, it’s critical to be able to quickly explore various aspects of concepts in three dimensions and in increasingly greater levels of detail.”

In "Freehand Drawing and Discovery: Urban Sketching and Concept Drawing for Designers" by James Richards

One of the tutors from my second sketching class, and the one that influenced me the most on a technical level.

Some of stuff I sketched during the above-mentioned class:

https://manuelaantao.blogspot.com/2020/03/freehand-drawing-and-discovery-urban.h... ( )

Targeted at architects. ( )

I've read a decent amount on urban sketching and drawing your life, but this book is from the perspective of architecture and landscape design. I skipped the last chapter on digital drawing, but the rest was interesting, if not quite what I was looking for. Lessons on perspective and the color wheel aren't really my thing. I'm definitely a drawing-your-life kind of person, with little interest in design. That said, I could see it being useful for someone interested in design, even if I have no idea how much new ground it actually covers. ( )

I'm working my way through this book slowly because I want to practice each element before I move on. The book includes access to some wonderful online tutorials.