Today’s best designers have learned to combine the advantages of technology with the immediacy and freshness of freehand sketching to expand their choices for creative exploration and expression.

On Thursday, March 12, 2015, 4:30–7:30 p.m., national award-winning designer, author, educator, and LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture alumnus James “Jim” Richards (BLA 1978) will present a workshop on freehand concept sketching at 130 Howe Russell. In this hands-on session, Richards will demonstrate and demystify rapid concept sketching techniques, explore developments in the global urban sketching phenomenon, and demonstrate freehand sketching with pen-interactive computers.

Richards is an associate professor of landscape architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington and cofounder and principal of TOWNSCAPE, Inc., an urban design consultancy with offices in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, and Vancouver, Canada. He serves on the Board of Directors and as a blog correspondent for Urban Sketchers, an international non-profit organization that teaches and promotes on-location sketching across disciplines and around the globe. His book, Freehand Drawing and Discovery: Urban Sketching and Concept Drawing for Designers (Wiley, 2013), won an ASLA Honor Award in 2014. For more than 35 years, his work has creatively spanned landscape architecture, town planning, and urban design on projects in 17 states. View Richards’s sketches on his blog at jamesrichardssketchbook.com. The workshop is open to LSU College of Art & Design students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Attendees should bring their favorite sketching materials, including pencils, pens, and a sketchbook, and a few colored pencils (optional).