Project - Gestural Architecture

1.2K
Course In Progress

Project - Gestural Architecture

1.2K
Course In Progress

You'll be assigned two projects to practice gestural perspective. This first one is a little easier, while the second will be mainly for level two, but I encourage everyone to try both. The main focus is on creativity, iterative improvement, and applying your perspective knowledge intuitively.

Level 1

Warm up with a simple doghouse. Use deformation methods to create an interesting shape. Avoid random deformations; make purposeful changes. If a deformation doesn't look good to you, change it.

Then design a more complex building, such as a house, apartment, motel, cottage, or church. Add multiple parts to the building, like a chimney, room extensions, or separate buildings. Apply the deformation methods to give them personality.

  • Make decisions with a purpose but also have fun and explore.
  • Follow your gut and make changes if something looks wrong.
  • Spend time on the project until you're proud of it.
  • Iterate and improve your design; don't just copy my example.
  • Practice multiple times to make it easier.
  • Focus on adding gesture and personality to your forms, not just accurate perspective.

Level 2

For level two, try designing a tree house. This is trickier due to the interaction between organic and inorganic forms, more complex design problem, and lack of a solid foundation.

Deadline - submit by July 9, 2024 for a chance to be in the critique video!

Newest
Aubrey Hannah
I practiced both the doghouse and a church building for my project. My portrayal of the church building was actually inspired by a nightmare I have once of a church that came to life. It was a strange, alien creature with bizarre and haunting movements. To express this, I tried to make it look as strange and unsettling as possible.
Tommy Pinedo
I really like the twisty church, and interesting dream about the church coming to life. I can definitely feel like the church is moving just by looking at it lol :D
Tommy Pinedo
Here are my level 1 attempts. I tried to incorporate twisting, bloating, curving and leaning. Let me know what you guys think. 😅
Aubrey Hannah
Wow, fantastic! The buildings look very expressive!
@brimarie
They all look great - very vivid!
Tyson
11d
That twisty one just doesn't look right. (I'll show myself out)
Chauncey Holder
The project was fun but challenging. It makes realize I need to do perspective stuff a bit more and shapes but overall it's fun to do. I wanna push designs more. I have some I drew from imagination and the other I used a reference
Randy P
1mo
Level One and Two both derived partially from reference. The gesture on the castle was heavily exaggerated jtrying to use different methods on each section and curving the overall perspective. The gesture in the treehouse is much more subtle with just some gentle tapering and curves.
May Berry
1mo
Dani Torres
Here is my shot to the level 2. I like how it turned out! Any thoughts? Feels good to just draw mindlessly without any pressure 😊
Dani Torres
For some reason I find the twisting cubes way harder than any other deformation 🤔 Anyway, I began drawing this with nothing in mind, but it turned out funny, I call it "Your fly is down". Is like the "main" house left its door open, and the ones of its left are holding the laughter, a few bend and stretch to see, and the ones close to us are laughing. And yes, I drew butts 🤣 Tomorrow i'll give the level 2 a shot! 😊
Rachel Dawn Owens
This is a perfect way to go about this assignment (And the butts are funny). I was just talking to someone else about this earlier. You can give objects some personality to inform design. Tell a story, have fun. And you can turn anything into a well designed and fun drawing.
Doug Drever
Melanie Scearce
Fabulous idea. I love how the other houses are looking up curiously.
Stefan Sharkov
Here is my attempt at a cottage (top), a motel (right), and a treehouse (bottom). I think I was a little too gestural for my first time; the extreme perspective threw me off when I tried to add finer details.
Rachel Dawn Owens
Looks like the houses are dancing 🕺
@dollydigital
Martha Muniz
Nice! Love the fun house shapes! With the treehouse, the overall house looks great, but because we are looking up at the treehouse, the tree should also follow the same general perspective and go upwards. The texture and wooden steps you added already serve as indicators, so all they need to do is be placed as if we are looking up at them too -- the tree curves go up, and we look at the bottom of the steps instead of the top side. Keep up the good work!
@dollydigital
got a little messy near the end there
Yevhen Syrchin
Christina Unger
I have very little patience today, but here are three quick sketches: a friendly church starting to get as well-fed as the head priest, a bank upon which austerity is imposed, and watchtowers (inspired by Scott's submission, although too 2D...)
Daniele Olevano
@ray777
3mo
This one was a nice little project, makes you visualize forms a lot more!
Chris Cernoch
This was fun! I will have to try a different paper with my brush pen because the lines were more "dry brush" than I was going for. Also, I think I could go a little less wonky on some of it, like the stairs.
Alexandre Paquette
old-school disney vibes! I can almost see Pluto in the dog house
@emi78
4mo
Attempt level 2, tried Birds Eye view need more practice
Melanie Scearce
Super creative. I like how the trees are growing through the architecture. This is a pretty extreme birds eye view so there will be a lot of distortion as you move further away from the camera. You can sketch in a 1 point perspective box to use as a guide to keep your structure organized and see how far you can push it.
@aubrey
4mo
Here is my second attempt. I felt like I needed to try to add line weight and a little more refinement since I'm not very good at it.
Luke
4mo
I think I still need some practice, but its definitely helping me make more interesting structures. I'll keep working on it while using perspective in the future.
Xana Mendonca
This one was really hard for me. It is not easy to do perspective. I get so confused. Wanted to do some distortions to the houses but i did not know what to do.
Rachel Dawn Owens
You did great! The perspective on the branches and houses looks excellent! If you need some help distorting the buildings, you could think of them less like buildings and more like characters. This can influence the design.
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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
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