Architectural Rendering of Renovated Building Converted to Housing the Homeless

This episode will feature an architectural illustration I created a few weeks ago for a good client of mine, an architect in San Francisco, California….Van Meter Williams Pollack, LLP….But the project–the building shown here–is in San Rafael, California….It’s an existing building which will be repurposed as housing for the recently homeless population in the area….For this episode, I’d like to concentrate on the rendering from an artist’s standpoint….in other words, the challenges and goals that I faced as the illustrator, charged with creating an engaging image which would be utilized to show the developer what the finished project would look like when completed….For example the ribbon windows were located under a shade canopy, a situation which called for showing the glass in this area as reflective to give life and lightness to the rendering….it also helps to vary the colors and reflectivity to create visual interest….The solid parts of the building were a neutral gray, so it was especially important to show visual interest in the glass areas….I also chose to show the cars as fairly colorful in this view–as a counterpoint to the neutral grays of the building….As the artist, cars are one of those things of which you have ultimate control….if they need to be colorful to give the artwork balance, then that’s what you do….The human figures fall into that category as well….I generally place the most colorful folks place near a focus of the drawing–maybe an entrance to the building, or an outdoor water feature–something that I want the viewer to see first and foremost….Another challenge for me was the large evergreen trees in front of the building to the left in this view….In reality these redwoods are so dense with foliage, they would preclude any view of the building behind them….I took artistic license to show these trees in a semi-transparent fashion to show both the extent of the tree coverage and some semblance of the building behind since this is not a portrait of this building–but rather a visualization of a renovation project….I hope you enjoyed this episode–Jeffrey Michael George works with many California architects as a freelance illustrator, creating architectural renderings in color pencil and watercolor which bring their design ideas to life !