The urge to design can be irresistible. It’s exciting connecting the eye and hand like never before, taking you into new uncharted territory. But also on some level it speaks to a deeper place within you that longs to create.

Yet design isn’t a learned skill like cutting dovetails. “Awakened” better describes this process of unlocking our creative potential. We all have the basic ingredients within us; it just takes a bit of encouragement and a willingness to see things through a different lens.

There are two basic aspects to design linked closely together. Foremost is the ability to visualize, imagining a form in our minds eye just as a composer hears music internally.

Second is a means to bring that vision to reality at the workbench. Waking up that internal eye has a lot to do with unlearning our modern numbers focused way of thinking.

Forget about numbers, rules, and words for that matter, it’s about unveiling simple shapes, forms, and proportions. We’ll equip you with a visual language your mind can use to explore ideas spatially.

We’ll introduce you to some time honored methods for awakening your eye for design. You’ll learn why the ancients called dividers the “tool of the imagination”. This simple tool can help you see what is now just beyond your grasp, and help you to express those ideas with confidence at the workbench.

In this three day design seminar George develops your eye and sense of proportion through a series of drawing exercises, analysis of classic pieces and visits to some of the wonderful Victorian buildings at Fort Worden and in Port Townsend.

Design - Back to Basics

Day One

• Warm up drawing exercise – simple shapes to begin speaking a visual language.
• Lesson topic – basics of proportion – symmetry, contrast, and punctuation.  
• Group exercise – pull out the major forms and proportional schemes behind a variety of furniture masterworks. 

Day Two

• Field study – Visit local architectural sites to practice “seeing spatially” make simple field sketches to bring the ideas home.
• Lesson topic – Curvature – simple approach to add life to a form. Enhancing a design with ornament or decoration. How the application of ornament (organic forms, geometric, or color) can add to the underlying design

Day Three:

• Application - design a small chest with only a straight edge and dividers, using proportions rather than measurements to flesh out the details.
• Lesson Topic – Light, shadow, properties of color, character, composition, bringing it all together.
• Group exercise – Critique, learning to express the visual language verbally to enhance your ability to “see”.

You'll need to bring:

• Sketch pad, plain white spiral bound artists pad 9X12 or 12X18. Graph paper is fine also.
• Two pair of dividers, it's handy if they are two different sizes (6" & 10")
• A pair of compasses
• 45 degree drafting triangle
• Straight edge, 12" long is fine
• Pencil / eraser / Sharpener
• Folding ruler (optional but fun)

Bring in the seed for a furniture project. Can be a page torn from an old magazine, some rough chicken scratches on a napkin, or anything that we can build on to design a piece of furniture.

Class size:   20       Minimum enrollment: 10 by July 1, 2011