Drawing, doodling, sketching, charting, diagramming, whatever it is that puts your pen(cil) to paper is a ubiquitous, necessary, and sometimes overlooked feature of making things and makerspaces. I’d like to take a moment to sing its praises, from the perspective of someone tasked with helping others’ ideas get from concept to reality.

A few weeks ago, architect Lola Sheppard visited Whittier Hall and the Makerspace as part of Studio Art’s visiting speakers series — and speaking as lapsed architect myself (and a long-time fan of her work), something she said truly resonated with me: “if I can’t draw it, I can’t explain it.” This was a different version of the “If you can’t draw it, you can’t build it” adage I often heard as an architect that seemed to get closer to the point of drawing for me.

Drawing is a language that moderates our verbal conversations with our physical fabrications — it’s a means to an end of explaining something visually but it’s also a medium itself for the unique and explicit expression of your ideas. At least 75% of the brainstorm sessions I have with students about a project they’re working on involve us breaking out graph paper and mechanical pencils (Paper Mate Sharpwriters, of course) — so, draw!

Draw what you see, draw what you can’t see. Sketch out multiple views of what you want to make, draw a diagram or a flow chart of the abstract ideas you’re trying to include or embody in your project. Draw clumsy and loose, then draw controlled and precise. Find your voice on paper–you don’t need to be “good” at it–and then see what the 2D version of your idea reveals.

See you in the makerspace! We have pens and paper.