Architecture for Students

This is a quick tutorial on how to marker render your drawings digitally. It gives a professional and impressive look to your sketch schemes that tutors at University love...I know because they told me I should start adding marker colour to my sketches.

You could obviously buy a couple of marker pens from an art shop, print your drawing off and marker away.....but what if you make a mistake? What if the colour dont turn out the way you want after you just bought a pen that cost £5 each? Do it digitally and its easier, quicker and better.

Step 1. Scan your line drawing, plans, Sections, Perspectives, what ever into your computer. Make sure you scan it at a medium sort of DPI or resolution. If your not sure what that means dont worry!

Step 2. Once scanned, open it up in Adobe Photoshop. It should automatically be a background layer.

Step 3. Create a new layer and call it "Colour layer"

Step 4. Once this is done, go to the '0tool panel' select the 'brush tool' and change the setting to whichever one you prefer. I normally choose the 'oil paste' setting and then what ever size that fits accordingly to the sketch.
N.B Remember, your trying to mimic actually marker rendering your sketch in real life so you wouldnt try colouring a bit which is very small with a very large brush.

Step 5. Select a colour which you want to maker in. (Best options are light colours which are not as bold and in your face, as not to distract the attention away from the actual drawing).

Step 6 Once the colour is selected, fire away and brush over the area which you want coloured. Dont worry is it goes over the edge a little, thats the whole point to make it look like its done by hand and a bit, well sketchy!! IMPORTANT. Make sure you have selected the colour layer in the layers panel and not the background layer.

Step 7. Once your happy, select the layer "colour layer" and on the layer option drop down above, select the "Multiply" mode, which blends the colour to the background layer. It will all of a sudden look quite good!

Step 8. You can adjust the transparency with the slider to make the colour more or less faded!! This is a very useful tool!

Step 9. Still on the "colour layer" go to "filters>brush stroke>splatter". A new dialog bow will appear. Just click "ok". All of a sudden the brush strokes on the drawing have a bit of splatter on them, a more authentic look. (if it has changed dramatically, undo this step, start again but in the dialog box which appears change the settings accordingly).

Step 10. Repeat steps 1-9 for different colour or shades.

There you go, a nice and easy tutorial on how to colour you sketches on the computer.

Hope you like......cya

The will be tests for the new roof which covers the centre court at Wimbledon on the 17th May. Tennis tournaments and the spectators will now be proud to see no more rainy delays or cancellations when this fantastic roof is up and running. The Big test for this roof in action is the Wimbledon tournament in June 2009.

The roof itself acts like a concertina wall, folding up when open and out flat when closed. It has a heating and cooling system to prevent condensation and maintain co a comfortable environment in the stadium, whilst allowing maximum light onto the court.

Celebrity players such as British player Tim Henman and others such as Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf and Kim Clijsters will all play mixed doubles and matches to mark the occassion.

Unitl next time............cya

Picture courtesy of Wimbledon Website

Hey guys, just a quick news flash at whats happening in Dubai. This funny looking structure is a proposal for the TyssenKrupp Elevator Award done by architects Francois Blanciak. It is for a park in Dubai called Zaabeel Park and is 1 of 926 proposals for this competition.

It is designed as a completely reversible structure (but doesnt actually get reversed obvioulsy) where the bottom and top mirror each other, a bit like a dumbell on its side.

With reference to Islamic architecture, a lower level childrens library and upper level conference rooms sit at the base, a shaded arcade surrounds the courtyard entrance and a 270 degree view podium is provided at the very top.

The structure is designed so that the mirrored horizontal parts balance each other out while loads are transferred down the steel cade shaft to the foundations. Quite ingenious dont you think?

More to come from News Flash, but for now........BYE

Picture courtesy of Francois Blanciak architects