Michael Maltzan Sketches

First a favorite subject…Michael Maltzan's then 3 year old daughter Hannah. In the Hannah sketches you see love for a little girl combined with the fluidity and movement so typical of Maltzan's sketches.




"It has to do with intention....the ones where she is standing still fool you....... You start out with the intention of drawing something very quickly...... then you put more and more into it...... if they fool you the drawing kind of buries itself".

Michael Maltzan about his sketches:

"This is the first time I have seen all these sketches in one place and I am struggling a little bit with what I feel about them.....In one way they are really exciting in another it is the past.....some of the drawings in the sketchbooks are extremely boring......they are all the start of an idea.......

I can't say that I design in one way or another it is a lot more back and forwards.....It is like casting a broad net and seeing what comes up.....
Some drawings, like plan sketches, are a little more accurate......I prefer the fast and fluid drawings .....the best drawings are almost like a field where patterns begin to inter merge in the sketches.......the ones that say 'OK here is the building' are the least interesting for me......

I try to get into a model as quickly as possible, often too fast, because I think I trust the model too much, and I am panicked about getting the project going..

A model for me, at that stage of the project, is a kind of receiver for the ideas, and if there aren't enough ideas in my mind that are strong enough the model becomes irrelevant.....then I go back and draw some more and then.... suddenly the model takes off......there is a big jump between very conceptual sketches and detailed sketches..... the middle ground is often in the model itself...

What I like the most about the drawings is where it feels like I am trying to find something......they are the best when there is a kind of freedom and when they seem to transcend a three dimensional understanding of the work - in a very abstract way. The three dimensional aspect sometimes becomes distorted when you are starting in one place and rotating around in the same drawing and you begin to feel something is about to happen......lots of ideas as opposed to specific representations of a building.....

I really like the Hammer sketches.....they are very interesting to me"...