Meet the team!
Adriana-Stefania Tomeci

Hello! I am Adriana and I am a fifth-year MSA student in Advanced Practice. I enjoy drawing every time I get the chance and I always carry a sketchbook around with me. I have worked on projects from architecture to fashion design, brand design, book illustrations and animations, and I am eager to meet you all and create something exciting through MSA Live!

MSA LIVE 2021 starts tomorrow!

Get your pens & pencils ready, as we have some very exciting workshops and activities coming up this week. Keep an eye on the blog to see what guest speakers we will introduce and don't forget to follow @msa_sketchy_business on Instagram, where we will post daily updates on the work produced by our students.

We can't wait to get started, see you tomorrow!

JIGSAW DRAWING

The first exercise of this morning will be a group one, where our students can showcase their personality and art style. We have prepared a collage and each student got assigned to work on one piece of the puzzle. The aim of this exercise is to allow collaboration between the BA and the Masters students, while creating a unique and eclectic art piece!

Keep an eye on our instagram page @msa_sketchy_business where we will update the process!

JIGSAW DRAWING

This morning, our BA and MArch students were given a puzzle piece of a bigger composition and were asked to draw it in their own style. The end result is an unique composition, where complementary drawings enhance one another. Afterwards, we have asked the students about the experience and they shared some insight into the preferred art technique with the rest of the group, such as materials used or creative process. The resulted composition will be shared on our social media as part of the final workshop exhibition!

PERSPECTIVE WORKSHOP

Following this morning's successful drawing experiment, MArch student Eva Hughes Filose has presented a workshop on different types of perspectives. The students were then encouraged to try sketching themselves and we have seen some very ambitious attempts for 3, 4 or even 5 point perspectives! The general feedback of this exercise was positive and it encouraged both BA and MArch students step out of their comfort zone and try their hand at some complex architectural compositions.

COMPOSITIONS

To wrap up the second day of MSA LIVE2021, our students were asked to create compositions out of random household objects. The aim of this practice was to encourage creativity, especially considering how the current Health Crisis situation has restricted access to model-making materials. With the use of books, kettles, pens, flower pots or even fruit, BA and MArch students created some simple compositions which were later manipulated in post production in Photoshop.
Think outside the box!

DAY 5

MORNING SCHEDULE - Sketching Workshop with Ewen Miller
Workshop starting at 11:00 am

Our team was very pleased to welcome Architect Ewen Miller from Calderpeel Architects as a special guest!
He discussed hand sketching and visual communication as essential elements of designing Architecture. As he showed a series of sketches he included process drawings similar to yesterday's activity. The workshop aimed to allow our students to express their thinking process through sketching and learn how to produce images to comprehensively explain their design concept.
The students were then asked to work for one hour on designing a concept for a chosen site in Manchester, having the opportunity to discuss their work with Ewen Miller at the end of the workshop.

Make sure to follow our instagram page @msa_sketchy_business, where we post daily updates of our students' work!

SKETCHING WORKSHOP WITH EWEN MILLER
Site Location : 39 Hilton Street, Manchester, United Kingdom

Prior to this morning’s sketching workshop, the students have been asked to look at the site on 39 Hilton Street and produce atmospheric responses, site analysis and discuss about their observations.

During the presentation this morning, Ewen Miller discussed about some of his projects, with an emphasis on the design process and final result. The talk was very insightful, showing that producing fast sketches or even tracing on top of Digital Models and Photographs allow a clear communication of the design concept!

After the talk, the students were given some time to produce a series of sketches showing their initial proposal for an intervention in The Northern Quarter.

Big thank you to Ewen Miller for joining us today and encouraging our students to produce some amazing hand sketches in his Workshop!

After developing the site response drawings for one hour, the BA and MArch students have presented their very different design concepts. This activity was a great opportunity to practice their drawing skills and make use of tools such as inks, markers, tracing paper or watercolor!

Keep an eye on the @msa_sketchy_business instagram page to see all the work produced today!

It's a wrap!

We were happy to finish the first week of MSA LIVE 2021 with a workshop on post production techniques in Photoshop. Our students were quick to learn new skills and apply them to enhance their previously created sketches. The activity was interactive as the MArch students took turns in sharing their knowledge and tricks for digital rendering and post production.

As the BA students have expressed interest in learning Photoshop and Indesign, we are considering doing some more similar activities in the following week.

We are very excited for the upcoming workshops and can't wait to see what work our students will produce as final outputs of these sessions. Until then, don't forget to follow us on instagram @msa_sketchy_business, where we showcase all the sketches!