One day in 2015 Doris went to her studio storage shelves, and said to herself “Look at all those tools and templates that we once used for drafting. What should I do with them?”

Part of the fun of being an architect is all the tools and toys we have to play with. Most of these are now in our various computer programs, but in the 1970s these items were floating around our desks, drawers, and tables. It seemed like an endless array in the studios and offices: circle templates, French curves, adjustable triangles, furniture templates, lettering templates, parallel rules, eraser shields, electric erasers, lead holders, lead sharpeners, brick coursing guides, metric scales, ruling pens, rapidograph pens, (that got clogged and unclogged), lettraset sheets, zipatone, tree stamps, perspective graphs, yellow trace, vellum (that expanded and contracted with the humidity), sepia prints, exacto knives, and more. Then, of course, there were also all those tools for making three dimensional models!

She thought it would be interesting to use these ancient tools to make 4 x 6 watercolor sketches with colorful abstract, geometric patterns. Exploration and contemplation were her goals for these watercolors encompassing observations on the physical environment, memorable quotations, professional transitions, and her future aspirations.