Category Archives: Rendering

Distance is a bricklayers best friend

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But not trees


Struggling to get a technique to do distant trees quickly, hey ho.


Annotation for A-A and B-B cross section, 
tried to work my planting choices in to justify them.

Annotated referring to the planting and material plans. And Oh the Sun is shining outside.


Trees improving by copying the tree off a photograph, all good practice. Distance a bit naff.

This one i am the least pleased with need to work on the planting area’s,but time and all that. Still took ages on the distant trees grrrr.


Annotate these two tomorrow and then Sequential s


Now a long hot bath and some food other than toast.


Blogs, what the Funk are they good for………

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Music thats what!!


Been on this blog for a while downloaded some Funk/mixes, best groove i have found in ages, Funk, jazz and Hip Hop mixed with real soul. Plus a couple of new tracks that are gems. Doing the Cross sections whizzed by with a little less pain thanks to the ‘Funk’


http://henrykrinkle.blogspot.com/


Back to the Point


Updated 1;200, completely re-annotatted lots of tweaks , managed to get a bit more depth, but have be carful not to over do it and end up looking like a dogs dinner. Annotation is best in the morning when the brain is functioning at its best.



The first cross section took ages as usual still trying to sort out an effective rendering style, really did not want to go down the PS image route as i have proved to myself i can do that reasonably well and its mind numbing trying to find the right image. Plus once a technique for rendering has been found then its a case of getting quicker as each drawing goes by. The first took 9 hours mainly due to indecision, the second took 4h. 


All PS rendering, discovered its best to put a base colour down first then build upon. Bit like Rolf Harris without the 150mm emulsion brushes. Found the trees in the distance the hardest



Quicker this time, still not decided about the distance. Tried to use the planting plan to identify the trees and plants and thus put them in with some accuracy. Both to be annotated tomorrow morning.

Then the other two.

Will eat food other than custard creams tomorrow, still no running.






Light Fantastic (ish)

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Re-visit


Like many in the group i have been revisiting my 1;200 stuff and working my way through,


so far materials, tree planting, shrub and climber planting, lighting, festival lighting (had to do it, very kitsch,but when you are a kid and its Christmas being high brow is not as important a visual overload for a memory, that includes 47 year old children).


Planting trees





Well worked hard on this, the trees are large on purchase to get an effect while everything else is taking hold, a risk, but it also shows the intention of getting an effect to get the park up and running quickly.


Shrubs and Climbers

Felt like this took forever (about a week). Trying to get reasonable flowering through the year with out to many holes. It may be better to go for a spectacular short flowering season or not (ie Augusta Masters Golf, hate the game but love the tournament, and the blowsy Rhododendrons remind me of Mrs Bucket for some reason)?

Lighting



  Enjoyed playing with PS trying to get the lighting in the dark effect, as usual stumbled on a couple of things.

1) In the layers pallet click on the drop down and use luminosity once your blue fill layer has been placed over the colour image. It will turn the blue black ,don’t worry, just mask the main picture and create another colour fill when you have finished. It seems to lift out of the screen a bit more.
2)Brush and brush presets are were its at, once you have mastered layers and masks this is the next most important (in my humble opinion), brushes effect erasers, so the brush pre sets can act as a eraser brush. Worth playing with.

Lighting Festival


The chance of using extra lights for festivals with the ravine seemed a no brainer. The effect is a bit chinsey with these colours but everyone has a bit of chinse hidden away in the back of their head. After all this is a park for everyone not just your average judgmental ‘Garden Designer’ No Baa humbug here!

Drainage






Hopefully finish this one tomorrow and update the 1;200 MP. Thought a lot about catchment and water harvesting, so i will be putting in tanks and irrigation ect. Along with sediment tanks for the collection of silt. Used different arrows to show the speed of water, ie slower on soil that rock/hardstanding along with gradient.




One all the drawings then cross section update, sequential’s, precedents and finally model pics.

Then 1;50. Hopefully have a few drawings for the 4th May.

And Oh, my achilles has gone again, fan bloody tastic.









Work, curse of the drinking classes.

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Mines a pint.

Trying to clear my backlog of paid work.


Just thought i would put up what i am doing to show the different requests from clients and the work arounds one has to do. Also the experimenting with rendering and perspective sketches.

Small narrow back garden.

Client request for veg, cottage style, new baby on the way, interest in perennial planting ie has the time to play/enjoy the garden
Basic perspective copied from a photograph on A3, rendered with pro markers until they ran out!. Finished in P/S. lots of little bolt on tricks, in particular using ‘poster edges’ from ‘filter gallery to get some depth and definition to finish. Tree is a bit Naff.


Looking back toward the house. Same again copied photo, straight into P/S and rendered. Struggled a bit with this one, the pergola is to large and heavy and a bit out of perspective. Looking at it it needs more umph on the planting. Very simple design (see earlier plan ‘Darwin or God’).



Front Drive on New Build ( ‘Knot Garden’ plan )

Drive and walls already constructed,so working with what is already there. I would like to take the curved wall down and have the hedge as a barrier, we shall see.
A bit garish on the colour front ,but that is to compensate for the printers printing on the dark side. Graphical. Drawn out of my head, scanned, rendered in P/S. See what i mean about the wall. A twist on the knot garden. Very formal due to the style of the house (mock Georgian) and the position as a semi circle on a two exit drive. Finished off with ‘water colour’ filter.Man in orange tee shirt seems to be a theme

A bolted panoramic picture , traced, scanned and P/S.
Same finish with Water colour.


Lessons.

Still yet to find a routine that i a happy with,though the graphic route seems to be favoured at present. I am just so aware of providing images that communicate, rather than provide atmosphere as limited time and finances means reading the client and fitting the image to their need is important. Plus i still need to ‘practice the atmosphere thing, as well as everything else.

Tomorrow back on ‘Park Life’ 



‘To Nail or not to Nail, that is the question’

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Slingshots and Arrows 


If the Bard had been on our course i am sure he would of reached this conclusion. Having tried to complete stuff for pin ups i often compromised on annotation, levels, planting, materials, etc,etc. So ended up having to explain myself on the back foot, which is fine (you pay’s your money…..and all that), but non the less annoying. 
So this week i have concentrated on nailing the 1:200 ‘freeze’ plan. In particular levels, planting and materials. Really tried to get the ‘zing’ back. So slingshots and arrows, yes, but at least i feel that i have been thorough (to my ‘student’ standards at least).


Plan


Drawn on the ‘board’, scanned and merged. Photoshop rendering. A lot quicker this time as learnt techniques used and hopefully improved. Tried to make it a bit lighter in feel, but still atmospheric.
A lot of updates, but in particular the cafe to the right of the waterfall, set back into the hill, more space to accommodate seating. Thought a lot about the hills of grass to sit on, there aspect to the views in particular.

The annotation will be improved once i have completed the planting and material plans. Again a case of nailing them then updating this plan. I think the scale bar needs improvement, i know Andy had a good template. I feel some plagiarism or is that inspiration, m’Lord.
Sketch Book


Spent quite sometime drawing idea’s that were suggested as well as developing new ones. Scribbling seems to help me think, even if it turns out to be rubbish, also to check if whats in my head would look ok spatially and other problems that may be thrown up.

Had a go at rendering with water colour pencils, a hint is better than total fill i think.
My usual scratchy ink (fountain pen). I have come to the conclusion that this is the way that works for me, quick and effective (to my eye at least)

If i want to draw steady lines then i can trace over, but i think i have drawn this way for sooooooo long that the old dog ain’t gonna learn this time.

The zigzag of the planted path with axil steps cutting across, seems ok, Put a hoody in with some swag who is distracted by the lovely planting, later nabbed by the ‘Fuzz’ ,society to blame and all that

Brass railings an inspiration from the new bridge at Kew (with a nudge from Paula ,cheers ). Playing with a gold/brown glass or plates of textured brass, copper /zinc alloy (Admirality Brass higher Zinc ratio for reduced corrosion or maybe bronze copper/tin alloy)

Youth on bridge

Timber high walk way through the south bank. Resin in lay in the timber (aka Bluewater though black rather than yellow…yuk)

More balustrades, Central meeting point on the North bank under a large pergola. My version of the ‘Green Business Man’.

Cafe by the waterfall, out of scale and to near the front, rectified on the little sketch below.

A thought about enclosing the axil stair’s in a metal pergola with a climber. Plus a tunnel effect and shade, minus reduces the view across the park, mmmmm a conundrum as Sue would say. 

A cross section of granite by the water. Plus some anti skate board idea’s (grumpy gene coming into operation i am afraid)

Axil steps lined with trees? 


Something Borrowed..

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Had an attempt at Paul’s technique on tree’s, After working on levels and re-designing the planted area. Still trying to bring some ‘sparkle’ back into the design that has definatly got lost somewere along the way.




Tree’s

Fagus spp
Betula?

Hedge/planting from above


Have a look at Pauls Blog, he has put an instructional video, worth a look.
The trees literally took 2 minutes

How?

Water colour and natural sponges.


Conceptual Drawing

Had a go, tried to keep it as simple as possible. A fave medium of charcoal, why? Because its messy and expressive.






Out with old…..

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Well really trying to do this quick sketch thing. Takes me awhile to work out perspective in my head, then i draw/scratch, so good, so far. Rendering is were i come unstuck.
So many different ways, now i am running out of my beloved pro markers, forced into looking at more photoshop, block colours and then fading the opacity. It takes me as long either way at the moment but i guess with practice etc.


So here is one i did earlier, can you guess what it is yet?

My iron men battling the current in the middle inspired by Antony Gormley’s 
‘Another place’. Works well with my ‘people centric themed park’.







Le Crunch

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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

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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