Jim Leggitt / Drawing Shortcuts

Quick SketchUp Visualization for a Resort Hotel

Every so often a visualization challenge is presented to me that is outside my level of experience and requires some quick and creative action. Illustrating the concept design for this resort hotel in Djibouti, Africa was difficult as I had only two pieces of information to work with: a hand drawn site plan and a single building elevation drafted in red pencil. 

My task was to develop two renderings that portrayed the waterfront resort hotel, marina and adjacent development. I first needed to build a Google SketchUp model of the development, select views and generate the renderings in about four days! My process is outlined below:

Step 1: Assemble Base Information.  The resort’s site plan was designed by my good friend and very talented architect David Klages,FAIA. He generated a hand drawn site concept and eventually produced a beautiful hand drawn illustrative site plan for the development. I imported his site plan and used it as the overall base for the SketchUp model. David also drafted a red pencil elevation of the hotel that captured the basic roof forms, window patterns and ground level facade detail. I had only the hand drawn site plan and elevation as the source information available to develop two renderings! Could it have been any more difficult?

Step 2: SketchUp Massing and Mapping. I converted the red pencil drawing to black and white in Photoshop and imported the image as a texture into the massing model.  I also brought in the site plan and resized it to form the base of the model, then constructed the hotel wings while methodically mapping the exterior onto the model faces. I worked closely to make sure the floor-to-floor heights were accurate and all sides of the building were adequately mapped (covered) with facade information I extracted from David's hand drawn building elevation.

Step 3: Add entourage and Additional Buildings. I completed the SketchUp model adding luxury boats downloaded from 3D Warehouse and built secondary structures in the model that represented villas, employee housing and commercial uses. I strategically placed a few 3D palm trees in view areas that would eventually be illustrated.

Step 4: Select Final Views.  These two images show “before and after” overhead views of the final SketchUp model. I then selected one aerial perspective view and a low “roof-level” closeup view of the marina to use for the final two renderings.

Step 5: Export Image and Print. I exported a high resolution JPEG of the aerial scene, lightened it in Photoshop, then plotted it in color onto matte finish coated bond paper approximately 24 inches wide.

Step 6: Ink Linework and Color. I drew additional detail onto the color print with a water based roller ball pen and colored the entire  image with Chartpak AD markers and Prismacolor pencils. I add blue pencil to the water and white pencil hightlights on the water, roofs and windows. The final colored rendering was scanned at 300dpi and reproduced in the concept design report.

Waterfront Roof Level Perspective. This second rendering highlighting the marina, waterfront pedestrian promenade and other ground level hotel amenities was illustrated using a similar visualization method.

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

 

Recycled Drawings: Creating 2 Drawings out of 1!

I’ve always promoted saving time and improving my drawing efficiency by “recycling drawings” - tracing or modifying existing drawings to create new images. One of my previous blogs on November 12, 2010 explains this concept in further detail.

The drawings below are from a quick-turnaround visualization project in which I was asked to illustrate two alternative mixed-use towers on a site in the Middle East. In order to minimize my time investment in duplicate renderings, I chose to create a single drawing of the site and insert two different towers into the image using Photoshop. By doing so, I only had to draw the site and adjacent buildings once. Here is my process:

 

Tower One View (shown above): I built a Google SketchUp model of the proposed city, constructed the tower model and inserted it into the waterfront site. I then created the ink line drawing on vellum over an enlarge print of the SketchUp view. I added final color with Chartpak AD markers and Prismacolor pencils and composite scanned the image with the SketchUp print to capture the shadow and water tones. 

 

 

Tower Two View (shown above and below): I modeled an alternative tower design and inserted it into the original model. Using the identical view (scene), I illustrated ONLY the new tower, colored and scanned it, then digitally "pasted" it into a copy of first rendering using Photoshop. By enlarging the view in Photoshop, I was able to fine-tune the splice and repair any edges where the two images came together. Compare the two final tower views with each other and you will see identical drawings with only the tower elements changed!

Tower Two spliced into the original drawing.

Same SketchUp Mode with Two Towers: This eye-level waterfront view used the identical process of creating a single drawing and "splicing" a second tower into the view. I constructed the base SketchUp model and exported two views with the two alternative towers. The final colored renderings below are identical with the exception of the towers. 

If you ever have a project in which your client is considering several different design solutions, don't hesitate to think "recycled drawing" as a method of saving time, achieving great results and making your visualization process more efficient!

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

 

Thanksgiving Watercolors: A 15-year Family Tradition!

 

Annual family traditions are not easy to establish and maintain over an extended length of time. My daughter Gretchen and I have a 15-year old ritual of painting a watercolor every Thanksgiving day. We created our first turkey watercolor in 1995 when she was 11 years old and that began our annual process of creative story-telling, illustration and pure teamwork painting watercolors depicting a marvelous story about turkeys in our modern world. This year marks our 15th watercolor and we are ever so excited to begin!

A brief overview of our turkey saga: Turkeys on route to the slaughter house escape. Turkeys tour the world. Turkeys experience trauma, love, family, travel, culture, politics and heart break.  The story is much more complex and will someday make a great book!  Our process is simple - we dream up a concept that may pertain to current world events or our personal lives, sketch out the big idea, illustrate the image on watercolor paper and then paint away!

 

1995 Watercolor - our first in the series was a straightforward picture of a turkey looking a bit worried. This look gave us an idea to put a personality to the bird and create a sequence of events that we could paint in future Thanksgivings!

1998 Watercolor - This painting shows the evil farmer (notice the yellow hat and red truck) taking young birds to the slaughter house. Gretchen and I already had a turkey escape planned out for a future watercolor.

2000 Watercolor - here is Gretchen with the beginnings of the great escape painting.

2000 Watercolor - the farmer is helpless watching the turkeys make their way to a better life. Our watercolor the following year showed them sun bathing on a Mexican beach drinking pina coladas!

2002 Watercolor - turkeys summit Mount Everest. The future is bright for our adventurous birds and their political cause! They picketed the White House in the 2004 watercolor.

2005 Watercolor - Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans and our turkeys sprung into action saving others in the chaos. They even saved our farmer (in the yellow hat and red truck)! Above the image is a photo of Gretchen painting turkeys in Florence, Italy taking art classes in a studio overlooking the Duomo.

2007 Watercolor - our interpretation of Norman Rockwell's famous Thanksgiving dinner celebration. They are eating a delicious platter of worms! Notice the picture on the wall of the farmer - now best friends with the turkeys. (this is one of many back stories)

2009 Watercolor - the great world recession/depression of 2009 punched all of us in the gut, including our turkey friends. The pencil sketch above captured the big idea and we chose to paint this watercolor in black and white sepia tone to emphasize the bleak conditions we all faced in last years holiday.

What's next? 2010 marks our 15th watercolor together and we proudly look back at a pretty darn good father/daughter tradition.  Gretchen now teaches art at a private elementary school in Bellevue, Washington and I operate my design and visualization business Leggitt Studio LLC. Life is good!

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

Saving Hong Kong's Harbour: All in a day's work!

Several years ago, my talented architect friend Thomas Schmidt, AIA was asked to do a time-sensitive “freebie” illustration by a local concern group to help others envision what Hong Kong’s impending Victoria Harbour reclamation “could” look like, as an alternative to the Government’s controversial and widely-criticized harbour reclamation plan that was in place at the time.  

Through a decidedly low-tech but quick 8-hour process (essential if you’re not getting paid), Tom snapped a few photos from the top of the tallest building adjacent to the reclamation area to serve as the basis of the rendering.  He then printed out an A3 color copy of the photo view he thought would best illustrate the concept, and started sketching with graphite on trace over the color copy to flesh out an imaginary human-scaled pedestrianized environment for the proposed project area, which was in stark contrast to what the Government proposed.

   

An A3 white piece of paper was used as a background sheet, then the “project area” and harbour was carefully cut out of the color copy revealing the white background paper below, and then a new layer of heavyweight trace was laid over the entire image for the final ink linework based on the graphite layout sketch.  

   

The final ink linework (Pilot 01 Drawing Pen) was then colored with Copic markers (airbrush marker for the water) and Prismacolor colored pencils.  Unfortunately, the airbrush marker spray used for the harbour was too “wet” and saturated the heavy trace, which resulted in the paper instantly shrinking and buckling in that area as Tom began to pull his hair out.  Thankfully, the unintended wavy appearance ended up appearing as waves and worked perfectly for water!

  

The existing city context surrounding the rendered image was still partially visible through the trace, and unexpectedly came through as a hazy monochromatic backdrop further defining the more saturated colors of the project site – an unintended, but welcome result of this experiment in layering.  An additional layer of blank trace was then added between the base copy of the photo and the final rendering to further make the background photo recede.  The multi-layered set of sketches with several unintended accidents was quickly scanned and sent to the local concern group within a matter of hours of Schmidt agreeing to assist them in their cause.

 
They were absolutely thrilled with the rendering -- and relative to the creation of a hazy grey city skyline background they added, “You even managed to capture Hong Kong’s worsening air pollution problem as well – which is another item on our agenda with the Government!”  This one image was soon widely circulated, stirred intense debate between the Government and local concern groups, and consequently triggered a plethora of alternative design proposals from the local and international design community shortly thereafter.  Tom was shocked to learn that his quickie little A3 sketch had in fact acted as the catalyst for engaging the public to reject the Government’s ill-conceived plan and encouraged them to help shape the future of Hong Kong’s most precious asset:  Victoria Harbour.

Look for other interesting articles on my blog, visit my website www.drawingshortcuts.com and read my new book Drawing Shortcuts Second Edition. All images in this article © 2006 Thomas Schmidt, AIA, ASAI All Rights Reserved

 

World's Largest Paint By Number Painting!

I recently attended a Rhode Island School of Design reunion weekend and observed a very creative and interactive piece of public art. A former student created a very large “paint by number” mural on the RISD campus and allowed kids, parents, students and anyone interested to dip their fingers into over 150 numbered colors and paint the individual numbered cells. 

The 7‘x10’ mural named “Rhode Island Reds” was first sketched on paper and transferred onto the wood panels in pencil. I observed the progress throughout the day and photographed the completed painting at sunset! 

Who knows….this could be the largest “paint-by-number” painting in the world!

The artist created a 11"x17" mockup of the mural and subdivided the painting into over 150 different colors - each with an individual number and location.

Participants were encouraged to select a numbered color, dip their finger into the paint and fill in the specific location for that number.

 

Completed "Paint-by-Number" mural!

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