Kent Show 2011

Posted on July 16, 2011 by itsaboutpeople292867057

Hadlow Show Garden

I went along to see the Show Garden that my good friend Whitney designed for Hadlow College.

Outstanding design and followed the brief to perfection. A ‘Top Gold’ (read best in show) was awarded, and rightly so….

So why was it so good?

Well these are just my humble observations

1) Balance, the ratio between soft/hard/water and the building was perfect

2) No Full stops, meaning that the viewer tended to look at the whole picture rather than just hot spots of design. Thus leading them in to explore further and notice the detail.

3) Journeys, plenty of them each leading to a destination, very hard to do in a small space.

4) Space, or the use of in the sense that the seating tended to be in the furthest corner thus back to the wall and more impression of space.

5) Tones, of the planting flowed interspersed with neutral whites to lift the strong orange/burnt yellows out.

6) Humour and idea’s, well we are British and we love a quirky idea.

Design and Whits blog

http://reinventrecreaterenew.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html

A few photo’s

As usual got a bit involved trying to do the art picture and forgot to take any overall pictures, hopefully Whit will put some up on her blog about the process of the site

Well done Whitney!

Work…..

Posted on July 12, 2011 by itsaboutpeople292867057

A small update on a Garden (alas no funds to do the lot)

Always difficult matching your own work with other, in this case a builders ‘attempt’ and some DIY, so tried to match and improve, but with one eye on the future ie more updates so a bit of a balancing act.

Materials and issues

Every space throws up issues, in this case small, all grass removed, gradient falling towards the house, sleepers everywhere.

The main solution was to provide a new soak away (new crate system wrapped in geotextile felt). Volume .5m cubed (100m2 =1m cubed for well drained soils) for 25m2 area. Slit gully for ascetics, with an adapted ‘p’ trap gully to trap any fines and access for cleaning. All falls 1-80/100. Normal type one compacted/6 to 1 sharp sand mix for slabs, pointed with buff resin system (which if you pay for the proper German stuff is brilliant and quick, sorry Jamie i disagree with you on this one, now i’ll go and dive for cover).

Planting

Worked on yellow and ochre as colours to reflect the colours of the slabs plus to give a warm feel to the whole area. Worked with perennials for the best display albeit for the summer only, a case of a good display for the height of the outdoor season or compromise with spots of colour through out the year… no brainer as far as i am concerned in this situation.
Contrasting shapes with and narrow colour range to keep the effect.

Requests, means updates

Posted on July 12, 2011 by itsaboutpeople292867057

Blown up images

They seemed very popular with a couple of requests for prints (though i will be keeping the day job).

Worked on a couple thus far, better placement of main characters, a bit of, err covering up, lifting via colour.

Don’t push me, cos i’m close to the edge

Posted on May 2, 2011 by itsaboutpeople292867057

I’m trying not too lose my head.

As ‘Flash’ put it (the grand master of the furious five). The message still holds its own and was the first ‘real’ bit of hip hop to hit my young ears back in 81 and was an instant convert to all things New York.

Unfortunately i went over the edge today when i realised the document that needs proof reading and up dating is on the external hard drive that has crashed.
Then as luck would have it, found the file on my Main Mac only for it to be corrupted and refuse to open even though it was showing 50+gb. Threw a hissy, broke my glasses (all £10 from Tesco). Fortunately a friend happened to call and calmed me down.

So looked around blah blah, threw a prayer up to the Great Garden Designer in the sky and presto it opened, only 10 unlinked photo’s that are easy to retrieve…. Calm restored.

Progress

Is slow, no matter how many targets i set it takes an age. So this is were i am at. Finished and annotated all the Sequences, Lighting spec done, Updated lighting plan and festival plan, spent an age on the model image plan, but that paled into insignificance compared to the ‘Mood board’ how difficult is it to find 5 images…bloody difficult thats how much! And then arranging them in an eye catching way, playing the ‘less is more’ trick, so difficult and time consuming.

Stumbled on a couple of things ‘playing’ with the sequence images, how to get some life into them, out of the box, simple as that, done one, not going to do the others. No time. I will probably do it on the 1;50 sequences. Using cut out people,but manipulating them so that they ‘sink’ into the image.

Turned this into a panorama and pulled Hari forward to give the image more width.Plus moved some of the trees higher to the right. Made the path wider as it was going to narrow to quick. Overall looks more balanced.

As Mr Chilli is a fellow republican i was going to send an image with some Royal joke, anyway these guests heavily p/s to sink into the image plus heavy shadow walking out of the frame, suddenly looked a lot better, lesson learnt , knew it from previous work but got so close to the trees that i could not see the wood.

Took some more model images, had a go at a quick render, inspired by Sue’s pain bucket. Did this with a ‘wet brush’ and some quick filters to sink (Multiply) etc.

Does not look to bad, gets the point across. I am sure with practice one could do some thing half decent. Did not use on the model sheet, time…….

Did a bit of a ‘Paula’ on this one, as in lining everything up, and really thinking hard about composition. Yep it should be 5 images, but it just would not work. So head on the block, 1 and 3 images are uneven numbers and thus clusters.

I am probably 3mm out somewhere Paula!

Spent an awful long time trying to find the ‘right’ kind of lights. Some don’t exist yet. It seems to me that most of the lights are made in China and ‘Badged’ (when several retailers put a name to a product that has been made centrally by one anonymous manufacturer).

So managed to find some recent prize winners from the USA for innovation etc. So the latest Phillips High out put LED’s (17.5w for small and 30w for flood). Still think there is a lot of room for some bespoke designed lights. The rope LED’s are still in their infancy so expect in the near future a lot more LED rope, lamps (bulbs are what you plant in the ground) and lights to come out.

Mood board is a good name as i was in such a foul one while doing this! Cut out some of the images so they merged into the one below. Have not changed the colours or any other p/s stuff. Thank god for ‘Flicker’ and screen shot on the mac. 5 images with some hierarchy hopefully got something across. Tended to look for pictures until one would’ hit me’. This takes some time unfortunately.

Just got Precedents to do later today, (done just need updating to get some more zing and relevance) then 1;50.

Thats it folks.

Subtractive Modelling, darling. Update

Posted on March 27, 2011 by itsaboutpeople292867057

Model
Well model done, photographed, photoshopped and annotated.
How was it done?

Subtractive

Ingredients

1 Sheet of 100mm selutex
Saw
Dremmel
ipod
Tea
Van
Drawing
Marker
Tea
Hoover

Plan on 600 x500 square of 100mm selutex (evil stuff)

Roughly drawn out ready for attack

then,

Additive

Card
Wire Wool
Tea
Silver foil
Impact Glue

Just after carving four loads of dust from the hoover and half in my lungs

Added the important features. Very neutral colours

Photoshop

Played around a bit to get a lighter feel, as a lot of my work recently has seemed a bit heavy and dull.

Decided to not have a frame on the pictures as the angles and backgrounds would not work, so went for the dreamscape view ( Q, the twilight zone music, it looked like any other display of photoshop fantasy, but he was now entering……. the ‘Twilight Zone’).

Spent a while on the annotation to ‘Sell’ the project.

One particular picture came out well, Daylight rather than electric always seems to work better. Photoshop sky.

So there we have it, another section done (but never completed).

Sunday is annotation day plus some sketches in black and white, then do the 1;50 area for monday, so normal frantic Sunday.

Update on cross sections i think will take a little more time as i have yet to come up with an alternative to the style that i have been using up till now.

Now where is that ink and Karens number……

Le Crunch

Posted on February 13, 2011 by itsaboutpeople292867057

Lille 2011

Sunday,

Arrived late so no change there, NetworkSouth East connections/cancellations blah blah.

Hotel room just south of Paris, a couple next door banging for France and finally the Kettle was broken.(though repaired as many know life without Chai for me is impossible)

so a good start.

Monday,

Introduced to the site by the town planners walked around in our team, impression, windy, cold, exposed, industrial, dusty, brewery odours.

Big site 55 hectares.

Started to scratch out a proposal for Tuesday presentation.

Tuesday,

Our theme was escape from the urban, but we really got bogged down in the intellectual process. All very lastminute.com , but fun.

Wednesday/Thursday,

We all worked hard to resolve and combine the two drawings from the two groups. Yes we argued,but in a very good natured way. Win some, lose some.

The God of Context and the saints of the straight line seemed to be our main stumbling block. The main idea in the end was radical so hats off to every one for going along with Simons idea. Pondering further a very good one.

Personally i felt we conformed on other areas such as housing, but its a case of looking past the rendering/model and thinking about the over all long term vision of 100 years. which was a good proposal, ie water recycling from an old dock, and as technology improves thus efficiency increases.

Friday,

Pin up. Worked late and up early to get it all done. We didn’t but 90% on the wall missed annotation of master plan.

Master plan hand rendered pencil and pro marker

By Batiste, Soziem and Elise

Paula and Amile worked on the document and putting drawings together. 5 star hard workers!! As usual Sue pumped out some excellent perspectives , love the happy chicken. Susan for her work on planting and placement

Edith and I, the cross sections, i drew and partially rendered she finished rendering and sky, which i love, swoosh. Jamie said it was very good before realising that it was mostly my work, hilarious seeing him backtrack!!!

Found out today(14th Feb) Paula did a bit of PS to lighten the sky and make them brighter…Nice

Photo’s of Lukes awsome model. Edith and i for pics then i done the usual photoshop thing for atmosphere. Annotation in a matter of minutes.

One drawing to come with Simons analysis and proposals, very technical,but full of well thought out process. Sue and I also bodged out a time line of 15 years for initial completion. Edith some conceptual, drawings really deep, and more research work from Susan.

Simon And Edith spoke ,very well with Luke and myself jumping in at the end to clarify a couple of points, managed to insult the main man, but hey ho, he won’t forget us!

Over all great team work, no slackers every one gave it their all.

Hurrah for the Water People!

Back to the Coalface

Posted on February 6, 2011 by itsaboutpeople292867057

Well had to get back to work and actually earn some filthy money.

Bit of a shock physically, slept like a dead man.

Sketch blow up

Good exercise in thinking about what you have to resolve. My main points to resolve before thinking about anything were spot levels, gradients and differentials as in water height to island height for example.

A lot going on in the chosen area. I can visualise in my head what is going on, which is no help to the viewer so more perspective sketches needed, even the two minute cross section type.

Then i can start to nail down materials and planting styles along with irrigation, lighting, etc.

Reading an interesting book called, ‘The Dynamic Landscape’. the outline of the book is about bio diverse planting in parks as the education of the public to understand and appreciate the beauty of naturalistic planting rather than the municipal planting of the 19th century that is still the core of most local authorities , ‘we have always done it this way’ philosophy.

If the park can demonstrate the example of the naturalistic style with the slightly more formal prairie style then this can help the local authority to use this style as the public will have seen this in the park. Complaints can be referred to the park as an example. A case of re education. Use this style for roadside verges and cut down on the present high maintenance amenity grass that is the norm

A picture from http://www.pictorialmeadows.co.uk/local_authorities

A company providing flowering grasses specifically for local authorities…Nice

Light is Everything

Posted on December 5, 2010 by itsaboutpeople292867057

Going stir crazy, so went out for a run, snow, clear sky and sunset with frosty mist rising from the snow. Soooooo pleased i took my camera. Best click on them to actually see. No alterations in colour, merged in PS for panoramas

Panasonic LX3

Galleries

Cropped,

http://gallery.me.com/hixondesign#100665&bgcolor=black&view=grid

Panoramas

http://gallery.me.com/hixondesign#100689&bgcolor=black&view=grid

Black Magic

Posted on November 3, 2010 by itsaboutpeople292867057

CS5 latest ‘Bloody Hell’ trick is called ‘Content Aware’.

Photomerged pictures in photoshop, nice. But to fill in the gaps?

Magnetic tool, invert, edit, fill, content aware,ok……wait, bloody hell!

Tidy up any little marks including school kids.

Calverley Park

Posted on October 14, 2010 by itsaboutpeople292867057

I had some work in TW recently and wandered down to the said park. Took a load of pictures with my new camera(old camera’s broken, a case of built in obsolescence from Sony), so it was not such a bind with a new toy that is way beyond my abilities.

To the point, Those who are going to TW on Monday and don’t know the place some tasters

TW, Materiality
http://gallery.me.com/hixondesign#100646&bgcolor=black&view=grid

Calverley Park
http://gallery.me.com/hixondesign#100639&bgcolor=black&view=grid

Panorama’s (the best pics to get an idea of the park)
http://gallery.me.com/hixondesign#100656&bgcolor=black&view=grid