Jim Leggitt / Drawing Shortcuts

Halloween Masks: Spooky 3-D Modeling!

Halloween at my house is a major event with more than 400 kids seeking candy at our front door. Yes, I said 400 kids!  Janice and I live in a very popular trick-or-treating neighborhood with a famous haunted house on the block. A few years ago, Janice and I found a book Simple Screamer by Dan Reeder and started constructing two large paper masks based on the step-by-step instructions in his wonderful book.  The basic shapes were fashioned over round forms that we built up with newspaper and lots of tape. We baked clay teeth and used plastic balls for the eyes. After several evenings of work and a few bottles of wine - MONSTERS!!  Here are a few photos of our freaky creations.  

Masking tape and rolled up newspaper forms. 

Applying newspapers with wall paper paste. What a mess!

Applying wet plaster cloth to the forms after the teeth were glued into place.

Final coloring with acrylic paints. 

 

Ready for Halloween!  

Look for other unrelated articles on my blog, visit my website www.drawingshortcuts.com and read my new book Drawing Shortcuts Second Edition.

 

Field Sketching at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin

There is nothing more rewarding than drawing from observation!  I visited Taliesin with a group of creative visualists from the American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI) and wanted to share with you some of the fabulous drawings and watercolors created during the field sketching trip. We toured Frank Lloyd Wright’s home in Spring Green, Wisconsin and many of the drawings were auctioned at a fundraiser for ASAI. I’m now the proud owner of the wind mill drawing by Al Rusch.

Here I am standing in front of FLW’s studio in which he made many of his architectural designs and renderings. Pack up the moving van - I would love to live here!

A talented friend of mine Joe Skibba painting one of the structures on the hill top. He had a tripod designed specifically for doing watercolors.

My favorite iconic structure on the 600 acre estate is the water tower.  Educator and artist Al Rusch made this incredible pencil sketch using a mechanical pencil with an “H” lead.

Legends in the field of architectural illustration Bill Hook and Frank Costantino created beautiful watercolors of the Wright buildings.

If you would like to see more examples of observation drawings and watercolors, look for other related articles on my blog, visit my website www.drawingshortcuts.com and read my new book Drawing Shortcuts Second Edition.

Advanced Composite Drawing with SketchUp

Combining 3D modeling, hand drawing and photography in the visualization process is what I’ve named the “Advance Composite Method”. Many hybrid drawings involve digital painting and other Photoshop tricks. The church campus drawing shown below is a good example of combining all of these visual tools into a concept drawing. Here is the step-by-step process:

Step One: Campus Google SketchUp Model. The most effective method of communicating the entire campus was to construct a semi-detailed SketchUp model. For you SketchUp historians, this is a early vintage model that used some of the first tree components. 

Step Two: Select the Best View. I saved several different views of this entry plaza and adjusted the lighting to cast shadows that best revealed the building massing. I also moved people and cars to improve the overall composition. Once the view was exported, I brought the image into Photoshop and “roughed up” the linework using a spatter filter. The spartan landscaping in the model was deliberate as I intended to add photographs of plants in the next step.

Step Three: Add Photographic Entourage. I imported various photographs of plants, trees and people to the image using photoshop.  The transparency of each plant was adjusted to keep the objects from dominating the overall image. Once I completed inserting the photographic content, I saved the image and plotted it on heavy weight coated bond paper approximately 18x24 inches.

Step Four: Final Coloring. The final step in the advance composite drawing involved over-tracing the buildings, people, cars and landscaping with a black pencil to further soften the image and give it a freehand drawing character. I added light colored Chartpak AD markers throughout and completed the hybrid drawing with Prismacolor pencil hatching on the ground, plantings and people. The final image is a fully disguised SketchUp model with photography beneath a layer of hand drawing! 

If you would like to see more examples of creating Advanced Composite Drawings, look for other related articles on my blog, visit my website www.drawingshortcuts.com and read my new book Drawing Shortcuts Second Edition.

 

Drawing from a “Stage Set” SketchUp Model

One time-saving method of creating drawings from Google SketchUp models is to construct a “stage set” model - one that is built specifically for a single drawing.  For example, with this planning project in Cairo our team built a site massing model of the overall development with simple building shapes and horizontal lines representing floors. My challenge was to illustrate a resort hotel on the edge of an open space.  Without changing any other portion of the model, I selectively refined the hotel architecture and the site area directly in front of the building. Here is a step-by-step explanation of my approach to the drawing:

Step One: Refined SketchUp Model. As you can see, the basic site massing model is left untouched while I fine tuned the hotel architecture with towers, roof elements and a window pattern made from a scanned hand drawing and applied as a material to the facade. I fabricated a series of stepped terraces for the plaza, water features and sloped landscape. I finally added tree components and people for scale. All of the hotel SketchUp modifications took approximately 4 hours to create.

Step Two: Ideal View Selection. I saved and exported numerous different views of the hotel, finally selecting one that was from a low angle to emphasize the dramatic terracing of the landscape and clarify the separation of a public pedestrian path from the upper hotel terraces. Note: print several scene options and review them with your team for constructive feedback.

Step Three: Overlay and Trace Drawing. I printed the preferred perspective view on 11x17 inch paper and illustrated the overall scene with a Staedtler Lumocolor pen on trace after blocking out the entire drawing in red pencil on a second sheet of trace. I added facade detail to the adjacent buildings. Note: the horizontal floor lines in the SketchUp massing model helped establish the window patterns and accurate floor-to-floor heights of the architecture.

Step Four: Final Color. I scanned and printed the ink line drawing onto heavy weight bond paper and colored the print with very light Chartpak AD markers.  All buildings were left uncolored with the exception of windows and shadows. Natural stone colors were used for the rugged landscape and rock walls. I completed the drawing with a hatching pattern of different blue Prismacolor pencils for the sky. The final drawing was scanned at 300dpi and reproduced in a planning document.

If you would like to see more examples of integrating Google SketchUp “stage set” models with hand drawings, look for other related articles on my blog, visit my website www.drawingshortcuts.com and read my new book Drawing Shortcuts Second Edition.

Watercolor Rendering from SketchUp Model

Michael Abbott is one of my favorite visualists who creates beautiful watercolor renderings for architectural and planning projects. I recently worked with Michael Abbott and Associates on a series of renderings for a golf resort in Cairo, Egypt. Our team approach involved my construction of a Google SketchUp model, establishing the primary views and giving art direction, then Michael illustrating the scene and painting the final presentation watercolor.  Here is a step-by-step of our process:

Step One: Google SketchUp Model. I built a very rough SketchUp massing model of the golf clubhouse and related buildings. The site included just the basic road outlines and recreation amenities. I selected the final aerial view from many different studies and discussions with our design team. I exported the preferred scene and emailed a jpeg to Michael.

Step Two: Pencil Drawing. Michael enlarged the SketchUp image to approximately 18x24 inches and traced over the basic model edges, added background buildings, landscape elements, foreground golf course, entourage and additional building detail.

Step Three: Watercolor Rendering. Once the pencil drawing was complete, Michael scanned it and sent  a jpeg to me for review and approval. He then lightened the pencil drawing in Photoshop and plotted it onto heavy weight watercolor paper.  Before applying watercolor, he mounted the paper on 1/2 inch foam board to avoid any warping of the wet paper. The final watercolor rendering was scanned at a high resolution and used for promoting the resort project.

If you would like to see more examples of Michael Abbott’s work and other watercolor renderings , look for other related articles on my blog, visit my website www.drawingshortcuts.com and read my new book Drawing Shortcuts Second Edition.