I have spent 2 days at Johor Bahru in Malaysia. One of the main street was under renovation using huge machines that I have never seen before.
I came closer and I met Amp, the “pilot” of this engine. He kindly allowed me to take some pictures. So I took a lot of them !
Amp was super nice, showing me roughly how he manipulate the machine.
Most of us carry a mobile phone with a camera included. I recommend to take in picture whatever you feel cool, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. Even a texture, a pattern, graphics, you may want to keep. Keep in mind that you may import them in Photoshop for rendering some of your products.
The idea is to bring new images out of Google image. This is how I can build my personal library of pictures than nobody else will have. I can shoot exactly what I want with a high resolution.
From today, you can start building your picture database. Keep good track of them, you may use them for inspiration years later.
I personally like to use the software Adobe Lightroom to store my pictures. Adobe Bridge (delivered with Photoshop) is also convenient to use. However, I do not recommend Aperture on Mac. I used to be fan of this software, but the day you start having a big library, the software tend to lag.
Before going to sleep, I doodled a bit of this shapes to memorise them.
These sketches are not aimed to be accurate neither beautiful. It’s just a training phase that will feed my imagination for future drawings. It’s only for study.
Don’t hesitate to draw big what is originally small.
Remember that you absolutely need to draw them to better memorise the shapes. For complex shapes, seeing is not enough.
Taking pictures is convenient for archiving. However, feel free to sketch anything cool you see, on the spot. Open your eyes, and train them to detect these cool stuff. Otherwise, we won’t even notice them. So be curious !
That’s all for today. Feel free to leave a comment !
A really inspiring tip! building your own visual vocabulary is my thing this summer (here in the philipines/sembreak) because my current drawing abilities is limiting me to project in a piece of paper my ideas. And im really the misconception in my school environment that drawing is an inborn talent. After reading this post i was able to get some photos of footwears earlier in a shopping mall. thanks man!
Awesome. I can guess that you are gonna bring your camera everywhere this summer. :)
Excellent advice for visual library.
Glad if it helps Brian :)