Just finished last week….

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.

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.  My 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.

Perspective Renderings show the exterior of an architectural project—as it will be seen once it’s completed—kind of a future glimpse, if you will.   Usually taken from a pedestrian eye level, an exterior rendering will indicate the materials and architectural finishes of the building, along with landscaping, trees, people, cars, and any surrounding existing context one would see.  Sometimes these renderings are required to be part of a project’s submission for approval.  They can also be very useful in communicating the “look and feel” that a finished project will have—well before its actual construction.  These illustrations not only show the structure, but all the building’s detail, with shades and shadows—indicating the effect of sunlight on the building.  Exterior renderings can be informative to the design process—allowing for review and reflection of all of the decisions regarding massing, architectural detail, landscaping, materials, color—all the major elements which are part of the design process.  The process of creating an exterior perspective rendering begins with the architect’s plans and elevations.  Once this information is input to a 3D CAD program, perspective views can be generated to be used as the basis for the rendering.  Once a viewpoint is chosen, details and entourage, including landscaping and people, can be added to the chosen image.  Upon approval, a freehand line tracing is done and submitted for the client’s approval.  Finally, color is added, either color pencil or watercolor, based on information supplied by the architect or client.  Once color is finished, a digital scan is usually made from the finished artwork and sent to the client.  Original artwork can also be sent to the client, if desired.  Although exterior renderings can be computer-generated, hand-drawn and hand-colored renderings are more successful in capturing the life and spirit of a place or building.  This is partly due to the fact that the public responds more favorably to hand drawings and paintings as opposed to their computer-generated counterparts.