Why Bother Sketching?
About two weeks ago I came across this article on the Popular Woodworking website that introduced me to the idea of sketching to improve my woodworking. I found the idea intriguing. The possibility of being able to train my eyes to better grasp the design in the objects all around me was exciting. Having a better understanding of what makes one woodworking piece more pleasing to the eye than another would seem to have an obvious benefit.
Here is how the article answers the question, “Why bother?”
“It’s about making something worth making. You might cut lovely dovetails, but is the piece in proportion? Does it look good? Will someone 100 years from now say, “that’s nice,” or did your piece go in the dumpster 50 years ago? Drawing is about your response to the patterns of nature. Seeing things – really seeing things – not just taking phone shots and putting them on Instagram. Drawing allows you to make better visual judgements when planning your piece of work.”
Draw Your Way to Better Woodworking – David Savage; Popular Woodworking; February 4, 2022
This paragraph and the rest of the article had me hooked. I decided that I would start sketching. It took me a few days to get myself to actually do it but so far I am really enjoying it. Below is a quick overview of a recent sketching session where I attempted to sketch a DeWALT drill bit storage box. Don’t worry, I edited it down to under a minute. You don’t have to watch me struggle to sketch this box for 15 minutes.
I am intentionally starting slowly. My plan is to pick an item from my shop or somewhere else around the house and spend 10 or 15 minutes, four or five times a week, trying to make a sketch of that object. Over time, as my skill improves, I will increase the difficulty of the objects that I sketch. The hope is that over time this will improve my ability to design beautiful projects.
Has Sketching Helped My Woodworking?
To be honest, I think it is way too early to say if this is going to pay off. After working on some simple sketches, I did decide to sketch out my ideas for a new client project. I normally would have gone straight to SketchUp but this really worked better. For one thing, it was a lot quicker. If I can get better at it, this should be a much better way of conveying my ideas to a client without spending the time on a computer model.
Don’t get me wrong, I will still be using SketchUp and Fusion360 for detailed modeling and planning. For me, those still feel like the best way to figure out all the details of how a piece will go together and determine all the wood and other materials that will be needed. However, for initial design work, being able to get ideas down quickly on paper will be great. Especially if I can do that well.
What is My Goal in Sketching
Long term, I would like to keep sketchpads dedicated to putting ideas down on paper. A woodworking book that I have really enjoyed is called “The Why and How of Woodworking” by Michael Pekovich. In that book, the author discusses how he keeps lots of sketchbooks around where he is always jotting down ideas. The book has pictures of pages from some of his sketchbooks. Some of the sketches are nothing more than a few lines to capture the barest essence of an idea. Others are much more detailed and closer to being a true “design” for a piece.
Section 4 of chapter 2 in the book is titled, “Draw, Draw—And Draw Some More.” In the first paragraph of that section, Mike writes:
“I have a number of sketchbooks cluttering my house, each one with an ink pen threaded through its spine. In them, I make quick, small sketches, with just a few lines to conjure the idea of a piece… A rectangle became a cabinet or a bookcase. A vertical line became a divider, horizontal lines became shelves. The combination became doors or drawers, so that in quick, shorthand form, a dozen iterations of a piece could be conjured in just a few minutes. Fast, fast, fast. And fun.”
Pekovich, Michael. The WHY & HOW of WOODWORKING – A Simple Approach to Making Meaningful Work. Newtown, CT, The Taunton Press, 2018
My desire is to incorporate the ideas from both of these sources into my work. By working regularly on sketching random real-world subjects, I aim to improve my ability to sketch and see the design all around me in the world. By keeping sketchbooks in which to draw, draw and draw some more, I hope to start a catalog of ideas like what Mike Pekovich describes in his wonderful book. And all of this is done with the ultimate goal of being a better woodworker and designer of woodworking projects.