witness a drawing renaissance as javier galindo takes his studio on the road

recent breakthroughs in digital tools have incited a drawing renaissance that is shaping design culture and unleashing eye-popping works from architects and artists of all type. first starting with artists, hand drafting was reclaimed by other creatives thanks to the gift of digital mediums like the iPadPro. ultimately, with applications getting better and smarter, we are now witnessing the perfect synergy between a user’s analogue intuitions and the highly sophisticated mobile drawing tools at their fingertips.indeed, as morpholio app co-founders explain it ‘creatives are smearing and manipulating inky pixels unlike we’ve ever seen to propel their work forward into the next era of thinking and design. and the results…are captivating’. 

one individual who is challenging the role of drawing in his own work is rome prize winner javier galindo, an architect who has taken his studio on the road with an iPadPro, the morpholio app‘s Trace and the Apple Pencil. from design to travel sketches, paintings and renderings, javier is testing the limits of drawing as a means of recording, sampling, and projecting ideas – a method that has shaped art and design culture for centuries. working in situ with the camera, pens, paints, and effects that a mobile device comprises, he is able to conduct research and advance projects in ways that would have been not only cumbersome, but nearly impossible with only a sketchbook in hand. the depth of exploration is magnified by the ability to mix media, and integrate his sketches seamlessly into a larger digital workflow that will, at later phases, include CAD, photoshop, rhino and other visualization methods.

‘going to rome, and influenced by the context of oil paintings, frescoes and sculpture, as well as the light and color of the city, I started with oil pastels, a color intense medium, to catch the depth and range of hues. but when it came to architectural competitions or examining these fragments to further my work, I needed a more expedient and versatile medium in order to duplicate sketches and manipulate them further. This is how I arrived at the idea of trying to use digital tools in an analog way,’ galindo explains.

the architect goes on to challenge the notion of a clash between paper and digital drawing. ‘digital tools are often thought of as a negation or displacement of hand drawing, but in this case it is quite the contrary…they become an extraordinary enhancement. The drawing and layering can take place in real time, without the need of additional scanning and Photoshop used by conceptual drawing trailblazers like LTL or diller, scofidio + fenfro. This really was not possible for architectural drawing until the Apple Pencil combined with apps like trace and journal’. 

furthermore, morpholio co-founders observe how ‘the work that is springing forth from designers such as galindo, is both fresh and informative about the way offices and practices are changing and will continue to evolve as their creative and collaborative processes are unleashed and amplified by new mobile, digital tools. if designers are expected to innovate at the highest level, they must be fed by inspiring places, sources and deep understanding of the plurality of culture and circumstances affecting our planet. furthermore, productive collaboration relies on the best tools of communication across international offices and interdisciplinary teams, increasingly demanding that we be everywhere at once.’

this digital ‘renaissance’ in the world of drawing allows all sorts of creative to push their work and ideas to completely new levels whilst also revisiting traditional techniques and human intuition. ‘the hope is that a rich and substantive process is being propelled into a new era, and thus far, the results are wildly convincing,’ the co-founders conclude

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: lea zeitoun | designboom