March 28, 2015

Why Learn to Draw in the Digital Age?

Authored By Christy Olsen.

We are bombarded with images from morning until night via the internet, television, advertisements, and newspapers. As we move into the 21st century, our world becomes more and more driven by visual images. Drawing is a much-needed skill in the world of today and tomorrow.

Drawing is a compelling form of communication! Visual language and the visual arts are now more relevant than ever, and drawing is becoming necessary. A single drawing can communicate an idea, your imagination, a memory, a feeling, or a belief.


Charcoal heightened with white chalk on ivory paper. 8x8.

During the Renaissance, artists, engineers, and architects were in the same profession. The great draftsman was deemed omnipotent supreme because they possessed a unique skill to carry out or implement their own vision. Hatched from an idea on paper into full-blown reality, the great Duomo on the Florence cathedral was built and spawned the Renaissance.

"All of the work of the hand is rooted in thinking." — Martin Heidegger.

Drawing can be used to record, create, design, invent, experiment, organize, clarify, or even learn something new. Think about it, everything in the man-made world came from some type of drawing or blueprint.

Drawing is an amazing process itself that connects us to the outside world. It requires orchestrating multiple brain mechanisms, including observation, planning, processing, visual and spatial intelligence, emotion, motor skills, and personally expressive mark-making.


Preliminary Sketch for Larger Painting. Graphite on paper. 5x7.

"The older I become, the more I realize that drawing is the most important of all the problems of picture making." — Joaquin Sorolla


Drawing is the basis of science, engineering, architecture, geometry, mathematics, painting, sculpture, design, and cinematography. It gives you the ability and skills...

  • To conceptualize an object in your mind, then translate it to your hand 
  • Sharpen your mind and directly improve your ability to solve problems 
  • Study an object from life and absorb the information 
  • Create plans, blueprints, or designs

"Drawing remains one of the most immediate means for analyzing, interpreting and imagining our world." —Juliette Aristides.

Using the timeless visual language of drawing, you can convey an idea quickly and efficiently to anyone regardless of their own verbal language. Drawing is essential for engineers, designers, architects, scientists, and doctors and is vital to representational artists.