Many students jump right into drawing the walls, windows and roof, but before even putting the pencil on the paper, it’s crucial to cultivate the habit of observing the space. An architectural space isn’t just about walls, but also about proportions, the orientation of light, the flow of people, the distance between objects, etc. Being able to quietly observe those things without immediately drawing something will contribute to your better drawings in the long run.
Instead of drawing a building, try to simply look at it for a while. Observe where the shadows are. Where is the entrance located in relation to the pathway? How high is the building in comparison to the trees or streetlights?
You can build this habit by setting aside a short period of time every day to observe the space. You can sit by a window or walk on the street and pick a building to observe. For 10-15 minutes, switch back and forth between observing and lightly sketching.
When you sketch, start with the largest form of the building you see: maybe it’s the overall mass of the building, or the shape of the roof, or the vertical lines of the columns. Try not to add too much detail at this stage. What you want to achieve at this stage is to capture the ratio between the height and the width, not the ornaments on the building. This daily habit will train your eyes to quickly capture the proportions of a space and also help you avoid putting too much attention on the surface details.
A very common mistake I see is that my students try to include every single detail they see on the building in their first sketch. Windows, bricks, railing, signage … all those things are added onto the paper almost at the same time, and the end result is a stiff and confusing drawing.
If you encounter the same issue, stop for a second, put a tracing paper or another piece of paper on top of your drawing, and try to redraw only the basic forms of the building: the overall mass, the major lines, etc. Once you feel like you captured the main proportions of the building, then you can slowly start adding those details back on. This process will teach you another important lesson in architecture: that a building is designed starting from its structure before moving on to the ornament.
Another exercise you can try is to sketch the same building twice, in two slightly different perspectives. Move your chair a little bit to the side, and try to sketch the building again. Pay attention to how the perspective shifts when you change your point of view. Some lines may tilt a little bit more, the front face of the building may become wider or narrower, etc. Those subtle differences will train your brain to better understand the space, more so than sketching 10 different buildings without any comparison at all. As you keep practicing, you’ll find yourself becoming more capable of imagining how the building would look when the point of view changes.
All those habits I mentioned above are more like a gradual process rather than a sudden eureka! moment. By consistently practicing the observation, simplification, and editing, you will become better and better at understanding the space. And at one point, buildings will not look that complicated to you anymore. They become simply compositions of geometric figures with certain proportions. Once that happens, drawing architecture will no longer be an intimidating task, but rather a fun puzzle to solve on paper.