Three Color Renderings for a Conceptual Sacramento Architectural Project

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In this article I would like to feature a very conceptual project envisioned for Sacramento, California.  I was commissioned by Mogavero Architects of Sacramento to illustrate their vision for the redevelopment of a prime urban block in their city.  The architect had some basic massing in mind for the buildings, with the site being adjacent to the midtown freeway crossing known as Business 80, which is elevated and cuts across the city.  I met in person with the architect at their office, and we talked about three perspective views to adequately describe the main points of the design.  The uses were mixed–residential, commercial, and institutional.  In the first rendering, we wanted to show the commercial element, which would be located on the less busy intersection away from the freeway overpass.  A sidewalk cafe with outdoor seating under a large corner canopy at street level.  We wanted to keep the canopy light overhead and simple, and we wanted to show a realistic entourage of people walking and enjoying this coffee spot along the way.  Trees were shown transparently so we could also indicate the scale and character of the building above.  In the second view, we wanted to tell the story of the institutional facet of the project.  Since the housing would have a large pool area and recreation room, we focused on that for the second rendering.  Taken at twilight, this view would be able to show the pool, common gathering space, and housing units in the multi-story tower above without going into too much detail, since it wasn’t really designed in detail at this early stage.  Twilight views are good for this purpose–they give you the general idea of scale and character–without a preponderance of detail.  For the third and final rendering, we wanted to show the entire development as it would be seen from the elevated freeway.  We chose a night view–again for similar reasons.  Much of the detail is obscured–and only the desired features are emphasized by using the lighting judiciously to highlight certain elements, and downplay others.  We chose to feature the large metal screens along the front of the block facing the freeway that filtered the windows from the traffic.  These architectural screens would be uplit at night, and the light that comes through them would be filtered and a little fuzzy.  As an artist, the idea is to show just enough, without getting into details that have not been thought out.  If the project becomes more of a reality, there will be plenty of time to make all of those decisions.  

Blue Cottage with Wood Trim for Senior Living

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Last Friday I finished this color pencil rendering of one of the cottages planned for a retirement community in Auburn, California.  The project is Rincon Del Rio, and it will be a large development for senior residents in the Sierra foothills.  Having done many renderings for this project over the years, I have a pretty clear understanding of the developer’s intentions for this age-in-place community.  This particular housing unit–one of three different models in the Cottage category.  These will be individual homes of about 2,300 square feet with most of the essential living quarters located on the main floor, although there is an upper level with interior stairs.  Tricky part of this rendering is the blue color which always poses a challenge with the sky treatment.Blue Cottage with Wood Trim for Senior Living

New Cottage Rendering for Residential Project

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Yesterday I finished this color pencil rendering of one of the cottages planned for a retirement community in Auburn, California.  The project is Rincon Del Rio, and it will be a large development for senior residents in the Sierra foothills.  Having done many renderings for this project over the years, I have a pretty clear understanding of the developer’s intentions for this age-in-place community.  This particular housing unit–one of three different models in the Cottage category.  These will be individual homes of about 2,300 square feet with most of the essential living quarters located on the main floor, although there is an upper level with interior stairs.  Color Rendering of New Cottage for Residential ProjectMy main focus for this blog post is to discuss the illustration from the viewpoint of the illustrator.  Although I was given free license to choose the color scheme for the home, I actually used the color choices suggested by the architect for this model–Michael Kent Murphy of Auburn, California.  With green being one of the two colors, this presents a challenge, since green is a common landscape color.  If you’re not careful as an illustrator, the main subject of the drawing–the house–can blend too easily with its background and foreground.  So it helps to use only the “house green” on the house, using greenish colors of a different variety in the landscape.  That was my intention on this illustration.  In this way, your first look at the rendering leaves no doubt what you’re supposed to be looking at–the house.  Another challenge presented by these house colors is the white trim.  Similarly, it helps to keep the white elements of the rendering limited to the house, largely.  In that way the impact of the white trim is enhanced–since it doesn’t compete with other white elements in the landscape which might steal its thunder.  These two challenges and their solutions are not unique to this exercise and are something fairly common for many illustrations.  If you keep these issues in mind as you are coloring the end result will be more effective and more successful.

 

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