What is Sketching? Engineering Design and Presentation Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. Definition Noun a rough or unfinished drawing or painting, often made to assist in making a more finished picture Verb [with object]make a rough drawing of: Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. What does that mean? A sketch is a rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not intended as a finished work. In general, a sketch is a quick way to record an idea for later use. Sketches primarily serve as a way to try out different ideas and establish a composition before undertaking a more finished work, especially when the finished work is expensive and time consuming (like designing a new engine for an automobile). Knowing how to sketch sharpens your ability to focus on the most important elements of a subject or problem that you must design. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

There are 5 basic uses for Sketching in the Engineering Design Process Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

#1- Rapid Concept Development Sketching is an excellent way to quickly explore your thoughts and ideas. You can sketch for one or two hours and work out multiple possible solutions to the design problem at hand. This is an essential step in the design process. It will save you time to work through concepts on paper before going to the computer. While it is possible to build sketches on the computer, it's not as fast as sketching multiple concepts on paper. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

#2- Basic Composition or Layout Sketches are a quick way to create the basic composition of your ideas. You can make a series of thumbnail sketches, or they can be larger. As long as your sketches are good enough that they capture the essential parts of your idea or concept, drawing skills are not required but yes, they help. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

#3- Client Communication and Approval Showing sketched thumbnails to clients, will potentially save you an enormous amount of time. The more detailed the project will be, the earlier you need client approval. If you're going to spend hours on an new engine design, you want to make sure the client is in agreement with your choice of design before moving forward. Getting thumbnail sketch approvals from clients is a common part of any design process. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. #4- Visual Exploration Sketching can be used as a journaling/reflection activity to record and explore your ideas. It can also be used to explore multiple options you could take in a particular design without spending time making them precise and to scale. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

#5-Refining Visual Solutions The process of creating a finished design at later stages involves refinement via drafting. But before you move on to the technical drawing methods, mistakes can be avoided or corrected by more sketching to work out the idea(s) you have. At some point you will move on to the computer. The process of sketching then moves into Computer Aided Design (CAD). Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

We are going to practice Thumbnail Sketching Thumbnail sketching isn’t used just for engineering design. Q & A Time = Can you tell me what are some other uses for thumbnail sketches? Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

What is a 'thumbnail‘ sketch? Thumbnail sketches are used by designers to visualize the final product. Also, to record the essence of the idea or design. Usually they are done quickly with paper (graph paper is often the preferred type of paper), a pencil, eraser, sometimes a pen and/or color. They are no larger than an inch or two. The artist's shorthand that may not mean much to anyone else. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. Definition The word "thumbnail" is a reference to the human thumbnail and alludes towards the small size of the image or picture, comparable to the size of the human thumbnail. While the earliest use of the word in this sense, dates back to the 17th century, the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms is reported to have documented that the expression first appears in the mid-19th century to refer to 'a drawing the size of the thumbnail'. The word was then used figuratively, in both noun and adjective form, to refer to anything small or concise, such as a biographical essay. The use of the word "thumbnail" in the specific context of computer images as 'a small graphical representation, as of a larger graphic, a page layout, etc.' appears to have been first used in the 1980s. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. What is it NOT? A thumbnail is not a fully rendered pencil drawing. It is not a working drawing the same size as the final drawing where the designer has worked out many questions about value, shape, edges, etc.. It is not a full color mini-version of the final drawing such as is done for an important expensive project to show to the customer. Its usually not meant to be seen by anyone but the designer. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. What do they look like? Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Why not just take a picture? The camera records everything without discrimination. In a thumbnail you must decide what is most important and eliminate the rest. This is the first step in the creation of a design...Simplification. Going from real world profusion to 2D design is a major transformation. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. What are they for? Memory aid and planning tools They can help you remember important features of a subject, why you found it interesting or beautiful. They can be used to try many ideas quickly. The first one is almost never the best one. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. How are they made? Hold in your mind the initial flash of excitement that caused you to get out your sketch book. It might help to jot down a word or two first about that feeling. Draw a rough rectangle. Depict your idea in a very simple sketch. Outline the major shapes. Ignore smaller shapes and details. Try squinting to see only the big shapes. Imagine how it would look as a finished drawing or product. Try likely variations, learning and improving from sketch to sketch. Establish roughly the location of major elements. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

What sort of notes are useful? Start with the type of materials to use, what does the customer require be on or off it. Whatever might help you later when you move onto the final technical drawing stage Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Why bother? I want to get right to designing/drawing. Do it because it will save time in the long run and you will end up with a better design! Most beginners benefit greatly from thumbnails to help guide them in the design/drawing process. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. Why don't mine help? It's a skill that has to be learned by doing. The beginning painter may get very little benefit at first because having never painted, he isn't able to imagine how his idea will look translated to paint. The more he knows what can be done with paint and what works, the better he can plan a painting and the more useful the thumbnail becomes. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. When it's done, then what? Set it so it is easily seen. Use it as a guide for sketching your subject on the canvas. Make  refinements as you go. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. Practice Think of your top 6 favorite toys as a child. Now create a thumbnail sketch of each of them in the space provided. Feel free to add descriptions like how they made you feel, colors, textures, etc.. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. Today’s Assignment On the paper grid, give a thumbnail sketch of your top six (6) favorite toys you played with as a child. You can add color if needed. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.   Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Lets see if you can guess what mine are from these thumbnail sketches. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

What about now with color? Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

How do they help us when planning technical drawings? Thumbnail sketches as to planning out how we would draft an object by hand following drafting/technical drawing methods and/or in the computer in a CAD program Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Here is our problem the Rod Spacer Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. The Views Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

How I would draw it 2D in CAD Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

How I would draw it 3D in CAD Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. Some Practice Thumbnail sketch out the steps you would use to draw the following problems. Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. The Sling Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. The Adjustable Stop Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.