I’m completely in favor of hand graphics; although digital programs keep getting more & more sophisticated I just don’t think they can ever be as compelling as an illustration from a real master. (The fact that computer software developers put so much trouble into making their output go BACK to the old conventional styles makes a pretty ironic statement.) As a young LA you’re forced to focus on the techniques of drawing abstract lines on a computer screen for the whole workday, rather than having a wholistic understanding of the project. My distaste for AutoCAD is so strong that it’s one of the factors that led me into working as a sole practitioner primarily on residential design, where hand-drawing is still practical & welcomed. I did have one potential client ask me if I did all my plans in AutoCAD, and he kept harping on it, inferring that by doing so it ensures my design would be better and more accurate. Dunno where he was coming from with that perspective, but it shows how the public too often buys into the misconception that with the right software anyone can be an expert……that great fallacy of confusing the craftsman with the tool.
But I’m not a total Luddite; I discovered SketchUp soon after it came out & have been a devoted user ever since. I do one of two things with SU: (1) use the drawings as an underlayment for hand-sketching; I tape an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet of paper either over a printout on the light table, or directly onto the monitor, lightly pencil in the main structural outlines, then flesh it out w/ hardscape textures, shadows, & “fluffy stuff”, or (2) I export the SU drawing as a jpeg into Corel Painter, then using a Wacom tablet I make it “hand-drawn” with various distortion tools, bleaching or erasing away some parts, loosely painting in plants, etc. I tend to use the 2nd technique if a color rendering seems more important; it still has some evidence of a computer/hand-drawn hybrid, but that’s usually OK with me.
I’ll try to attach some examples.
