Purchase Guide: Architecture & Drafting

The Sydney Opera House. The Great Pyramid of Giza. The Enzo Ferrari. Some of the most beautiful and revered art in the world is the work not of master painters, sculptors, or crafters, but of artists dedicated to expressing themselves through engineering, architecture, and design! Skilled engineers, architects, and designers know as well as any artist or appreciator that line, color, and form are delights that improve and enrich life for us all. The work of these skilled artists, however, contrasts with that of famed masters such as Michelangelo, Pablo Picasso, and Jack Kirby in one key respect: The art of engineers, architects, and designers is intended to be just as functional as it is beautiful.

This important twist on the notion of art makes engineering, architecture, and design unique media with their own rules and conventions. Indeed, there is an entire globe's worth of incredible creations that aren't likely to be found hanging in any museum. It's a world of creation covered in any number of books and media on countless topics. But engineering, architecture, and design also constitute a world that can be explored through MisterArt.com!

Due to their twin goals of form and function, engineering, architecture, and design require tools, materials, and resources not found in other disciplines. This guide is intended to help you become more familiar with these forms of art and the instruments that inspire them. The more you know, the better-informed decisions you'll be able to make when purchasing with MisterArt.com.

This guide will cover the following categories of engineering, architecture, and design materials and supplies that MisterArt.com offers at everyday discount prices:

• Color wheels and guides
• Drafting
• Modeling Materials
• Reprographics

What are color wheels and guides?

Color wheels are reference tools used by artists to illustrate the relationships between colors. The traditional color wheel for light features the colors magenta, yellow, and cyan arranged across from one another in points that form an equilateral triangle when connected by straight lines. Another triangle is created by the alignment of the colors red, green, and blue. Connecting all 6 of these points forms a hexagon, and each color is arranged in a circle.

Colors are divided into four categories: primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors, and complementary colors. Using many color wheels, an artist can line up a primary color on the dial with any color on the outside wheel. The mixed colors appear in a window. These guides provide a handy reference for designers on how primary, secondary, and tertiary colors relate and look when placed next to one another or mixed. Color wheels and guides are especially useful for designers interested in seeing how bold or exotic colors will interact with one another within a space or object.

You can save everyday on color wheels and guides as well as other engineering, architecture, and design supplies at MisterArt.com!

What is drafting?

Drafting, or technical art, is an artistic style of creating mathematically accurate plans or representations of architecture, engineering, and design projects. It's crucial that drafting illustrations be precise and reproducible; for this reason, there are many specialized tools used by drafters in the pursuit of geometric perfection.

Along with a flat surface to draw on, the t-square is perhaps the most basic and essential tool used in drafting. By tracing the t-square's edge, drafters can draw perfectly straight vertical and horizontal lines. By lining a triangle tool along the t-square's edge, the artist can also draw perfect angles. Scales and rulers help drafters ensure that the lines and angles contained in the spaces and objects that they're drawing stay in perfect proportion to one another.

• Protractors and compasses are drafting tools used to measure and draw precise angles and curves.
• Curves are also tracing tools used to craft rounded lines.
• Drafting projects are traced and drawn on to a variety of different kinds of paper and films.
• Templates and lettering guides assist in reproducing common shapes, curves, and characters quickly and easily.
• Magnifiers make seeing and drawing small, precise details easier.
• Knives and blades are ideal for cutting supplies into appropriate sizes for drawings, laminates, models, presentations, and nearly anything else that requires trimming.
• Scales and rulers help drafters ensure that the lines they draw are straight, the correct length, and within perfect proportion.

There are also many sets and kits available that package together several common drafting tools. These kits are perfect for students and drafters who need to replace several tools at once.

You can find all of these and more drafting tools and accessories at MisterArt.com!

What modeling materials do engineers, architects, and designers use?

In order to give their clients the best possible presentations of their ideas, engineers, architects, and designers often build models. Models can provide a three-dimensional example for builders to follow as well as show potential financiers a smaller-scale version of what they could expect for their money. After drawing their idea on paper, the next step for many artists involved in engineering, architecture, or design is to model it.

There are a number of different kinds of materials that are used to build these models, each with its own advantages:

• Balsa and basswood are two lightweight woods with a high strength-to-density ratio. They can be easily cut using a hobby knife and can be stained to represent any kind of wood in a model. Typically, balsa and basswood are available in sheets, blocks, and sticks.
• Foam and Styrofoam can be cut, pressed, and shaped to represent all kinds of lightweight and durable 3D shapes useful in model building. Anything from hills to trees can be made from foam, and painted as well. Foam comes in a variety of sizes, shapes, and sheets.
• Plastic sheets are extremely durable and useful for representing a wide variety of man-made building materials in models. Plastic sheets can easily be cut, folded, and shaped and can be painted to look like anything.
• Landscaping materials are especially useful for architects. By using them to recreate trees, fields, ponds, and other geographic features, architects can give their clients and builders an idea of how their structures will interact with the environment. Landscaping supplies are also great for model train enthusiasts!

MisterArt.com provides fast delivery to your door of all of these architecture, engineering, and design modeling materials as well as tools for shaping, carving, attaching, and cleaning them.

What are reprographics?

Engineers, architects, and designers create a lot of detailed drawings so that their ideas can be accurately translated from the page to the real world. Reprography refers to the quick, repeated reproduction of these often-large drawings and plans. Reprography is commonly used in catalogs and archives, as well as in the architectural, engineering, and construction industries.

MisterArt.com has discounts on everything you need to burnish, mask, draw, and paste reprographics, including blue drawing leads and isometric and grid drawing pads.

Balsa and basswood are two lightweight woods with a high strength-to-density ratio. They can be easily cut using a hobby knife and can be stained to represent any kind of wood in a model. Typically, balsa and basswood are available in sheets, blocks and sticks.

Foam and Styrofoam can be cut, pressed, and shaped to represent all kinds of lightweight and durable 3D shapes useful in model building. Anything from hills to trees can be made from foam, and painted as well. Foam comes in a variety of sizes, shapes, and sheets.

Plastic sheets are extremely durable and useful for representing a wide variety of man-made building materials in models. Plastic sheets can easily be cut, folded, and shaped and can be painted to look like anything.

Landscaping materials are especially useful for architects. By using them to recreate trees, fields, ponds, and other geographic features, architects can give their clients and builders an idea of how their structures will interact with the environment. Landscaping supplies are also great for model train enthusiasts!