The "Lost Art of Drawing."

The famous architect, Michael Graves, had a brilliant op-ed in Sunday's "Times," called "Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing." You can read it here: Michael Graves article

I think Graves' article can be extrapolated to our industry, to advertising. First, Graves laments how it has become fashionable in his industry to declare "the death of drawing." He wonders: "Are our hands becoming obsolete as creative tools? Are they being replaced by machines? And where does that leave the architectural creative process?"

But Graves believes that architecture should not divorce itself from drawing. He says that drawing is part of the thought process.  Drawings, he says "express the interaction of our minds, eyes and hands."

Again, and I think this is germane to advertising, Graves divides drawings into three types.
1. The referential sketch
2. The preparatory study
3. The definitive drawing

Graves calls the referential sketch the "record of the architect's discovery....it is not likely to represent reality but likely to capture an idea." Graves says, "These sketches are thus inherently fragmentary and selective. When I draw something, I remember it. The drawing is a reminder of the idea that caused me to record it in the first place. That visceral connection, that thought process, cannot be replicated by a computer."

The preparatory study is "part of a progression of drawings that elaborate a design."

Here are the parts I really liked: "With both of these types of drawings, there is a certain joy in their creation, which comes from the interaction between the mind and the hand. Our physical and mental interactions with drawings are formative acts. In a handmade drawing, whether on an electronic tablet or on paper, there are intonations, traces of intentions and speculation. This is not unlike the way a musician might intone a note or how a riff in jazz would be understood subliminally and put a smile on your face."

And "As I work with my computer-savvy students and staff today, I notice that something is lost when they draw only on the computer. It is analogous to hearing the words of a novel read aloud, when reading them on paper allows us to daydream a little, to make associations beyond the literal sentences on the page. Similarly, drawing by hand stimulates the imagination and allows us to speculate about ideas, a good sign that we’re truly alive."