Just drawing yellow things in my landscape sketchbook. I’m being a bit lazy and not scanning or color correcting the images… these are just iPhone shots!
Another made up landscape plan
In this one I was actually imagining this in my front yard in the bed by the driveway. In reality, the front yard planted with natives but this was one of my earlier imaginings.
I get obsessed with certain color combos. This one I’m looking at silver foliage and peach flowers.
Landscape Sketchbook - Vignettes
I like to do little landscape vignettes. Not a whole landscape design but just a bed or a small area. It’s fun to use these informal, made-up sketches to explore color and texture and layering of plants.
Here is one with lots of maroon, red, orange, and yellow plants.
Another one with some red and adding in some boulders and gravel, IDK, I find drawing these fun and soothing!
Landscape Sketchbook - Blobs of Color
I was just playing around with color in this sketch. I really love seeing a landscape where there is super bright color introduced. So far I have not really had a chance to get a client to do this. I have certainly suggested it and tried! I really have! I just love a bright contrast and pop of color!
Landscape Sketchbook - Plan View
I came to landscape design through drafting and design, not through plants or gardening. When I first started landscape design classes I seriously did not know a single plant. LOL. One of the first classes I took was planting design for some reason. It was kinda hard since I knew absolutely zero about plants. :D
But I looooved hand drafting so much. It’s one of those activities where I can really get into a flow state. I like CAD drafting as well but it is not nearly as soothing.
I like to doodle these plan view symbols. Would it be weird to get some of these tattooed on myself?! No, no it would not be weird.
colorful plan view plant symbols
colorful plan view plant symbols
My Current Mental Landscape
My bubble diagram of my mental landscape. I think I was in a bit of a depressive episode when I drew this one. I should redraw this now and then to see how things change. Because, if nothing else, we know that landscapes change over time.
What would yours look like?
Sketchbook
watercolor painting in a sketchbook of a Clanculus margaritarius
Lami Safari Fountain Pens
I’m really enjoying sketching with my Lamy Safari pens. I’m most worried about upkeep for them, though. They need to be cleaned regularly and I am not great at that kind of thing. Right now I amusing Noodler’s Ink Black with the special refillable cartridges. Why do they come with non-water resistant blue ink? No one wants that!
Landscape Sketchbook - Containers
Turquoise pots are just lovely aren’t they? I bought this one at Pottery and Beyond in Emeryville.
Neighborhood sketchbook
Snapped a picture of a Tibouchina urvilleana on a neighborhood walk and then decided to sketch it. I love the look of the dark river rock and the fallen purple petals.
Visualizing with SketchUp
Still thinking about visualizing. I do like 3D scenes in SketchUp. It’s nice to have a but of that realistic texturing and the rendered shadows are super nice as well. In my own hand drawings I tend to not put those dramatic shadows in because I worry about ruining the drawing. :D
I think one of my annoyances with SketchUp is just have to do with finding the right plant objects to use. If a picture looks fairly realistic the plants need to be pretty darn close the actual plant being spec’ed in the plan otherwise homeowners get confused. With a hand-drawing you can just be like, “oh yeah, this is an artistic rendition”.
Again, these are not my design they are from the wonderful Susan at Garden Alchemy.
Oh, yeah, I also created that metal hoop sculpture you see in the photos in SketchUp and you can find it in the 3D Warehouse and use it if you want to!
Visualizing Designs
I’m imagining that everyone has their own work flow for creating client visuals. I love 3D and, in fact, have a degree in 3D Animation and Computer Modeling (or something along those lines… it’s been a long time). Making 3D renderings look good is fairly time consuming and I often don’t love the final product. The time consuming part is what is important here though, I’m not sure your small to mid sized residential projects will want to pay for that time. The GOAL of these visuals is to help the client imagine their space and maybe it doesn’t have to super elaborate and 100% perfect and I need to remember that.
Right now I am using SketchUp. It’s good enough but I do still love that hand-drawn look. Lately I have been rendering a line drawing in SketchUp and then coloring over it. Here is an uncolored example.
Firepit with shrubs
Same view but with different plants and chairs.
And a color example. The color on this scan came out a tad weird but you can see how I go about making a test drawing and trying out markers.
I print out several and then us AD Markers to color. I do love to color!
My current process:
Create basic SketchUp model and use one of the sketch filters. Create several views and print them out.
Draw in the plants - sometimes I draw directly on to the print out and sometimes I do a more elaborate dance with tracing paper, rescanning, color adjusting in Photoshop but honestly that takes way longer.
Choose a coloring medium - I have been using AD Markers lately but sometimes I use colored pencils. I would love to do watercolor. One of the joys of watercolor is how fast and blendable they are. I have not really worked out HOW to do this yet though. I don’t think my printer will work even wth the flimsiest watercolor paper. I could trace the drawing on but haven’t tried that yet. Something to work on, I guess!
Then scan, color correct, and done!
I don’t have my own clients yet but I get to color other peoples designs and I freaking love it.
The above landscape designs are by Susan of Garden Alchemy.
Color Blobs
If I’m not feeling inspired to draw/paint anything in particular I like to just play around with color. Sometimes I even just paint circles of single colors. It helps that my paint of choice, Daniel Smith watercolors, has such amazing vibrant pigments. A mistake I see people make is buying student grade watercolors. ALWAYS buy artist grade. I don’t care if they are more expensive! Even if you can only buy your warm and cool primaries artist grade is the way to go.
The SF Wave Organ
My sister and I jaunted over to SF to visit the Wave Organ in January, sketchbooks and coffees in hand. How had I never been here? All the years I was living in SF and specifically exploring everything I could and I somehow never ended up here. Anyway, I went now and it was a beautiful winter day with the sun shining. It was so nice to just sit and draw in my sketchbook listening to the waves and people and sea gulls.
Sun shining on an open sketchbook with a pen and green pencil. There is a pen drawing of the wave organ in the sketchbook
The sculpture was delightfully like an ancient ruin. I do love a good ruin. A real ruin not to miss is the Sutro Baths. I go there all the time and I should post some pics of that landscape.
This wave organ is a sound sculpture made from reused items including stones from an old cemetery. I love that and it makes for some very interesting sculptural stone work. The actual organ pipes are PVC and concrete. I think it sounds kind of like rubber bands!
Panorama picture with a woman with purple hair pointing a camera , the Golden Gate Bridge in teh background, the smooth waters of the San Francisco Bay and then some palm trees and a sea wall on the right.
Trees for Children's Play Environments
So plant ID classes can be very challenging. I’ve got some brain differences, including mild dyslexia, and memorizing a ton of plant names AND how to spell them is almost prohibitively impossible.
I’ve managed to soldier through life and all previous plant ID classes fairly well until taking Tree ID last semester. My LAST plant ID class required for me to graduate. I swear this one upset me so much because some large percentage of the grade was going to be on SPELLING. Spelling!!?
One of the grand things about life today is that there is the internet (a series of tubes) and spell check. Dyslexic people every where rejoice! Anyway. I have a Fine Art degree! Don’t ask me to spell!
For my final project for that class I had to get away from things I am bad at that make me feel terrible and like I am failing in 3rd grade again and get back to things I am good at, like illustration. I decided that illustrating a bunch of beautiful trees would sooth my fevered soul.
And, to make it more complicated (hello ADD), I thought it would be cool to turn those illustrations in to a book. Of course, I did not complete the project. I completed enough for the class but not quite enough to finish the actual book. I used Blurb to layout and print the book even though it wasn’t finished. I can finish it another time, right?!
Here are a few of the illustrations. I drew the whole tree and then a detail.
The Blurb software is called BookSmart and it’s … just okay. The final printed book is a little paperback and is so cute!
Here is the cover and some layouts
