Client: Nomadic
When Nomadic approached me about creating a piece of artwork for the launch of their new dress watch, the Dána 141, the starting point was the watch itself.
Rather than creating a traditional graphite portrait, the idea was to produce something that felt closer to a technical drawing, or large-scale graphite study showing the watch alongside the details, measurements and design decisions that made up the finished piece.
This felt the perfect direction for the portrait of the Dána 141.
The watch itself has a strong architectural quality to it. The rectangular case, chamfered edges, octagonal dial surround and layered details gave me a lot to work with. I was particularly interested in how those elements could be broken down and rebuilt in the composition.
Starting with the design
Before beginning the final drawing, I spent time looking closely at the technical drawings and photographs given to me by the team at Nomadic to understand the story behind the watch. I find this process cruicial in helping me to build a narrative theme for the watch that informs my process and the overall aesthetic of the final artwork.
The dimensions became an important part of the composition. The case measures 28 × 39.6mm, following a 1:√2 proportion, which is where the name 141 comes from. The √2 relationship also provided a useful graphic element for the drawing, giving me a way of showing some of the geometry behind the case rather than simply reproducing the watch as it appears on the wrist.
I wanted the finished piece to retain the feeling of something that could have come directly from a draftsman's drawing board. Measurements, construction lines, annotations and different views of the object became key to the visual language that would inform the look of the piece.
Working in graphite
My artworks are created entirely in graphite. There is something particularly suited to drawing technical objects with pencil, much like architectural drawings. You can get very precise with the line work, but you can also build up darker areas and subtle changes in tone to describe the different surfaces of the watch.
The case was probably the most interesting part to draw. The chamfered sections catch the light differently from the main surfaces, so getting those subtle tonal changes right is what gives the drawing its sense of depth.
The dial presented a completely different challenge. As there are a lot of small details packed into a relatively small area, I had to balance accuracy with making sure the drawing still read clearly at the size of the finished piece.
This time, my intention throughout was not to make the watch look only photographic. It was to also make it look drawn - which has been a new direction for me.
The 141
The geometry behind the watch became one of the key features of the artwork.
Starting with a square and extending its diagonal creates the √2 rectangle, and that same proportion is used in the Dána's case. It also gives the viewer something to discover.
At first, you see a drawing of a watch. Then you start noticing the dimensions, the construction lines and the geometric relationships, and the drawing becomes more of an explanation of how the watch was designed.
That was the part I found most interesting.
From technical drawing to artwork
One of the things I enjoy about this approach to drawing is that there is a point where you have to stop thinking purely about accuracy.
A technical drawing needs to communicate information. An artwork needs to hold the viewers' attention.
The challenge was to keep enough of the language of the technical drawing (the measurements, annotations and different views), without allowing it to become purely functional.
The scale helped with that.
Working at A1 paper size meant that small details could be given space and drawn properly rather than compressed into a small product image. It also meant that the finished piece could work as a substantial physical object within the Nomadic showroom and at their launch event, rather than simply being an enlarged version of something designed for a screen.
Drawing the watch, not just the watch
The final artwork brings together the different ways of looking at the Dána 141.
There is the finished watch itself, the technical information behind it, the geometry of the case and the smaller details that you only really notice when you spend time studying the object.
That process of looking closely was probably the most enjoyable part of the project.
A watch is a surprisingly complicated thing to draw. It is small, highly engineered and full of surfaces that behave differently under light. Translating all of that into graphite forces you to slow down and really look at it.
The finished drawing is the result of that process.
It is a study of the Dána 141, but it is also a record of how I saw it — through its measurements, construction and details, rather than simply as a finished product.
DÁNA 141 — DRAWN BOLD.
The Dána name comes from the Irish word for bold, daring and confident, and the wider concept behind the watch looks back to the draughtsmen and engineers of Belfast, where ambitious ideas were first put down on paper before being built.
That made this a particularly fitting project to work on.
The finished artwork will form part of the launch of the Dána 141 and its story: taking the watch back to the drawing board, quite literally.
Nomadic Dána 141 × Sophie Scott-Lewis
Original graphite artwork, 2026.