Drawing Shortcuts: Developing Quick Drawing Skills Using Today's Technology [Hardcover]

Jim Leggitt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471075493 | ISBN-13: 978-0471075493 | Publication Date: March 15, 2002 | Edition: 1st

An ingeniously simple drawing approach that joins traditional hand drawing techniques with modern technology

Start creating top-quality drawings faster and more effectively-with Drawing Shortcuts. This book presents practical techniques and applications that will improve your drawing skills and help you produce more accurate sketches by incorporating traditional hand drawing methods with today's technology. Easy-to-follow instructions cover every aspect from the basics of drawing-such as composition, color, shading, shadow, and perspective-up to the most current applications of cameras, copiers, and computers to create and reproduce your work.

This book's step-by-step approach will sharpen and streamline your techniques whether you draw for pleasure or for your profession. Generously enriched with detailed process drawings, examples, and more than 300 full-color images, it features:
* Detailed outlines of drawing methods, from "storyboarding" to the "overlay and trace" method
* Timesaving, end-of-chapter "QuickTips" for easy reference
* Guidelines for building a portfolio
* Pointers on selecting materials and maximizing color potential

Editorial Reviews

Review

A Denver architect has taken on a big task - teaching his colleagues how to draw again. According to Jim Leggitt, an architect and urban designer at Denver's RNL Design, there is a growing absence of architects in today's design marketplace who can draw by hand. In an effort to re-educate architects about the art and benefits of hand-drawing, Leggitt has written a book titled Drawing Shortcuts: Developing Quick Drawing Skills Using Today's Technology. The book grew out of Leggitt's years of experience on the subject, including his presentations on the topic of "Drawing Shortcuts" at several national seminars, most recently at the 2000 National AIA Convention held in Philadelphia. (Colorado Construction Magazine, October 2001)

From the Back Cover

An ingeniously simple drawing approach that joins traditional hand drawing techniques with modern technology

Start creating top-quality drawings faster and more effectively–with Drawing Shortcuts. This book presents practical techniques and applications that will improve your drawing skills and help you produce more accurate sketches by incorporating traditional hand drawing methods with today’s technology. Easy-to-follow instructions cover every aspect from the basics of drawing–such as composition, color, shading, shadow, and perspective–up to the most current applications of cameras, copiers, and computers to create and reproduce your work.

This book’s step-by-step approach will sharpen and streamline your techniques whether you draw for pleasure or for your profession. Generously enriched with detailed process drawings, examples, and more than 300 full-color images, it features:

• Detailed outlines of drawing methods, from "storyboarding" to the "overlay and trace" method
• Timesaving, end-of-chapter "QuickTips" for easy reference
• Guidelines for building a portfolio
• Pointers on selecting materials and maximizing color potential

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1st edition (March 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471075493
• ISBN-13: 978-0471075493
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #885,080 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jim Leggitt, FAIA took his first drawing lesson at five years old, courtesy of TV. There were two 'how to draw' programs being broadcast in 1955. Winky Dink and You and Jon Gnagy's Learn to Draw gave Jim his first taste of a cutting-edge combination of technology and hand drawing while tracing televised drawings onto clear vinyl placed directly onto his black and white TV screen. Fifty years later, Jim is now reintroducing Jon Gnagy's passion for teaching traditional drawing techniques, but with 21st century digital technology, high-speed computers and 3D SketchUp models as tools to assist in the drawing process.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than chocolate!, August 27, 2002

By 

Deborah Brooks (Savannah, GA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Drawing Shortcuts: Developing Quick Drawing Skills Using Today's Technology (Hardcover)

The only way Jim Leggitt could make this book better would be to package it with a quarter pound of really good chocolates. I've chosen to overlook that omission since this book is exactly what I wanted to use in my rendering classes at the Savannah College of Art & Design. This is a twenty-first century handbook for rendering in color.

Thirty-one students (two classes) proved to me this summer that Drawing Shortcuts works for learning how to make and render drawings in color quickly, effectively and relatively economically. The final projects reflect ten weeks of increasingly stronger skills and confidence in drawing/rendering abilities. Both graduate and undergraduate students with varied levels of computer expertise found value in the Drawing Shortcuts approach of "Let Technology Do Your Dirty Work".

Bottom line: a relaxed learning atmosphere in studio, fearless renderers willing to experiment with color media and striking final projects. The studio professors are commenting on the improvement in rendered drawings in their classes, too. Leggitt's methods are weaning students from a dependence on computer-generated images. The enhanced freehand drawing skills complement the computer drawing skills. Students now have many options for graphic expression which reflect their individual needs and desires.

I teach rendering classes for interior design students in the School of Building Arts at SCAD. We'll be using this book every quarter. Thanks, Jim Leggitt. But think about the chocolates with the second edition of the book!

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every Architect and Student Must Have This Book !, April 5, 2002

By 

R. E. Middlebrooks (Chesapeake, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Drawing Shortcuts: Developing Quick Drawing Skills Using Today's Technology (Hardcover)

This book is an instant classic, that every architect and architectural student must get. Many of us grew up using the techniques taught by Michael Doyle in his book "Color Drawing". Jim Leggitt's techniques are even more geared toward the pace of productivity we all face. Using all the advantages of current technologies, including cameras, copiers, and printers he shows you exactly how to improve or gain the skills it takes to produce fast and effective visualizations. Some of the techniques are so insightful and helpful, as to immediately payback the cost of the book. Great color photographs help guide you step by step. This book is packed full. No one interested in drawing technigues should miss this book.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, November 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Drawing Shortcuts: Developing Quick Drawing Skills Using Today's Technology (Hardcover)

I am an architecture student. The content of this book isn't by any means revolutionary, but it is smart. Basically the whole argument revolves around tracing as a basis for developing drawings, a concept I kind of thought of as cheating before reading this book. That sounds simple enough, but it is worth buying the book to find out all of the interesting ways he is able to develop a traced framework - ways I would never have thought of. He could have gotten everything he wanted to get across in half the pages, but then the book wouldn't look very serious.
Buy this book: the quality of your drawings may or may not increase from reading it, but you'll be able to produce twice as many in the same time.