Freehand Drawing and Discovery: Urban Sketching and Concept Drawing for Designers

Chapter Nine

What’s Next?

Figure 9.1: The author’s watercolor study of Brandenburg Gate, Berlin.

Figure 9.2: Michael Vergason’s on-the-spot sketch of the Charles Bridge, Prague.

Figure 9.3: Luis Ruiz’s napkin sketch of a family meeting as seen from a floor above the Café Madrid in Malaga, Spain.

If you’ve digested the previous chapters and begun to play around with some of the lessons and techniques, you’re already becoming aware that drawing can be more than a cool avocation or even a powerful creative tool. It offers a rewarding way of seeing and understanding the world. Developing its potential to become an enriching life skill requires doing it on a daily basis, and continually growing the creative capacity that fuels your efforts.

The following thoughts, methods, and disciplines can help you. They’re like a gumbo of ideas and impressions, lessons I’ve discovered or learned and developed over time, which can nourish your own creative journey. Some have been mentioned or implied in the previous chapters, but they bear repeating here.

At this point, don’t aspire to be great, or even to be original. Aspire to be prolific. That’s an aspiration you can control, and ...