Raysa Molina

Hi Vanessa; glad you’re having success with the colored pencil techniques. You have a good eye! I do use a cream pencil combined with peach on almost all buildings and hardscape at the very beginning of coloring a drawing, then wash over them with whatever color will best depict the material I’m envisioning…terra cotta, slate blue. etc. The…[Read more]

Nick,
Thanks! I’ll probably be doing more of these in the future and I would like to seed them be as representative of the true design as possible.

Thanks!

Eric-

I got your message. I need to make some evergreens for a plan tomorrow as fate would have it. I’ll post my steps here or shoot you a message.

-Nick

Eric,

I couldn’t tell you how to do it using drop shadows, but I could offer some good advice on doing it manually in photoshop without creating numerous layer copies and keeping the file size down.

send me a message if you still need help with this and I’ll explain some simple tricks.

Great conversation and thoughts everybody.

For me I went straight to a design/build after graduation but that is because I wanted to go that direction. I also spent 3 summers in the field doing the labor prior to graduation. No experience with a design only firm.

Correct me if I’m wrong but in most cases I design only firm doesn’t begin to deal…[Read more]

hai nice to join in this group

Tim, Jay, and others –

Just found this group, and am happy to see it exists. I am actually one of the Masters students you spoke about who is lacking direct landscape construction experience. I agree wholeheartedly with the comments, and see this as a huge problem. Do you have any suggestions on the best methods for acquiring this experience?…[Read more]

Does anyone have good method for doing evergreen shadows in photoshop with the drop shadow?

James Richards is great. I love his simple color palette. He blends darker colors in his lighter colors to make things look cohesive. For instance, he used carmine red and true blue (i think it was true blue) prismacolor color pencils over cream to create this really nice effect. So, the cream hardscape and buildings really popped after i tried to…[Read more]

Hi all I’ve just uploaded some of my latest university drawings please send any positive criticism. Thanks.

Chris-
I know exactly what mean. It would be almost impossible to be a true advocate for the client if you were being paid a sales commission from the contractor. The commission I was referring to is more like maybe a “finders fee”, if you will. I run across all sorts of projects and not all of them are appropriate for a designer. So I refer the…[Read more]

So much to learn from you lot, hopefully contribute some stuff that may be of interest. All abstract and still learning the basics of Vector/sketch up etc. Being a Mac user can you survive with out AutoCad? ( can’t do the Windows Geekdom thing)

Chirs,
Here in Texas we are not required to be licensed for landscape contracting. Sometimes I wish we were because every guy that has lost his job in the last few months has become a landscaper/maintenace contractor. I am sometimes bidding against people that are brand new in the business.
I am working with several Landscape Architects like…[Read more]

Hey Chris,
We are in Phoenix, and we do mainly design and subcontract the work out on high end residential designs. I believe we are the main contractor, and the work is divided accordingly.

Chris,
I operated a design/build company for 25 years where most of the work we did in-house with some sub-contracting on the specialized features. I now work by myself designing and then managing the projects. I have a network of contractors that work on these projects. I have a design fee and then negotiate a management fee with the…[Read more]

Elif-

I have learned that high-level or not, clients don’t read a lot of text. They’re swayed by images, sketches, pretty colors, and your passion. If you say Mondrian, show them what/who that is so they don’t have to ask. Have images that clearly delineate the connection between a Mondrian piece and your design (for example). If you communicate…[Read more]

Chris-
My advice:
If you love design, find a couple of good contractors you can send work to on a regular basis. They will (or should) pay you a commission or referal fee for the work you refer to them. They will in turn send you work, some of which they will pay you for directly. Probably a little at first, then more as your relationship builds.…[Read more]

Hey Chris,
My principal here in AZ is a licensed contractor. It’s pretty involved here, but definitely opens up many opportunities…

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I have questions about Vectorworks.. one of that is.. when I use VW for 3d site modeling, it becomes so slow.. I made layers simple, even classes.. But still slow..
I’m using ‘i-mac’ resent version. How I can make it faster? Change Graphic Card?
Up Grade Memory? Is there anybody knows about VectorWorks?