A finished 1-500

Took me nearly as long to annotate it as it did to render it! never mind, have to annotate my sections from yesterday In the next hour wish me luck!!

Here we go - 1-500 re- rendered,

I set myself a target to get this finished by 6, which I have achieved, finally something on target, just all the rest now!! 

Hopefully this is better than the last one, its definatly clearer and bolder, still struggling with planting, not sure what to do really at this scale, but just see what the feed back is, need to work on my building render but not sure how to do that either, OHHHHHHH

Etta James - Keeps me sane!!

Well Etta has been playing all afternoon and evening now, she has been with me through the these last 3 sections, here they are as promised, didint quite only take an hour each, tiredness set in early today, nearly there tho,ahah yeah right!! Signing off for this evening ,

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-tallest-tower-building-the-shard/4od, This is well worth a watch if you have anytime, the old man let me know about it, so beer and watch this now bed by 12!!

here they are!!

1-200 - Re jigging the whole lot

Here is a 1-200 section, re rendered, and re looked at! Much better, brighter, bolder, even more so than the 1-50 ones I did! 3 more to go, hopefully only take me an hour each now, well after wasting a whole morning this morn trying to get rid of a virus i have finally done something!!!

1-2000 - re done

This is a huge improvement on the last one which was done at 7 in the morning on the day of the crit, with no sleep, so surely it must be better, but here it is, I did also do another one which I decided not to carry on with which I will put up as well, not much else to report really, BLOODY SHATTERED

Website - Done and Link

After monday, the last couple of days have just been a hazy, felt hungover, after working so hard for so long, it takes a while to get back to the real world, if there is even a real world out there. Feel so disconnected from people and normal routines, feels very strange. Rather than just doing nothing for the past couple of days, we have been sorting out everything around the house, things that have just had to wait for the past 3 weeks, and today have managed to sort out the website for advanced representation, its just simple, I was going to try and use the new adobe software called Muse, its worth a look as its free at the moment, looks like it works just like indesign, you just add pages as you would do when making a document or anyhting, but just for ease for now have used a free website maker called wix.com nice and simple, yet frustrating but thats free software for you, here is my link, Its nothing you havnt seen on here really but gotta keep ticking things off!  http://www.wix.com/benchandler/landscape-designs

Gonna get everything sorted tonight for the next week and a half and right a schedule, this ones gonna be a tight schedule.

see you on the other side,

http://www.wix.com/benchandler/landscape-designs

Section 4 done - This looks how I feel!!! - Good night

This is it for tonight, way to tired to carry on, this one is poor, and needs a lot of work but have no energy left now, only 11 hours work today but oh well at least they are done, just a whole day of annotating to go and finish rendering my plan, do a schedule for my planting plan and we thought we were nearly there but oh no just looked at the brief for the pin up and realised we should have re-done our 1-200 plan and sections along with the 1-200 model, there was no chance of getting that done as well, no where near enough hours in a day for that as well, but it does show that for this crit we will have all the 1-50 criteria where as for the 1-200 we had hardly nothing, all because we cut down our paid work down to one day a week over the last 3 weeks, but at the end of the day you gotta eat!!! good night!!

Section 3 el completo !!!!

Section 3 done! I really enjoy doing sections compared to sketches, by far takes me about 2 hours to sections rather than about 4 hours to a sketch, thank god or else I would be in trouble!! here it is any how, I  just hope the panel like them, defiantly lots of room for improvement but getting a style together now, just need more time to refine it and hopefully improve it alot.

Section 2 done !!!

I hope they are ok, Im fairly pleased with them, they need alot more people and a fair few tweaks but that can wait until after the crit on Monday

Section 1 done - 2hrs and fairly happy with it

Here is my first section done, only 3 more to go, took me 2hrs so getting faster,

8 Visuals Done - Only 2 Days over schedule

These took me far far far too long and Im not happy with them really, all the ones with canopies need re doing with new canopies on them and others just need more people, all 8 need shadows on trees and walls etc but there we go gotta move on now  but here they are -  

Second Visual 3 days faster than the first!!!

Not finished but thought I would post it anyhow, now that I have everything its much easier to do, not sure this is the best one but it will hopefully get there.

Have to finish these tomorrow or else!!!!

Only took me 3 days to do one sketch!!!!!!!!!

Well the title of this post is a slight exaggeration because I thought I would try using 3d cad as I thought it would be great to render my sketches, so after a day of building the model I realised that I couldnt plot out of cad what I thought I would be able to, So thats one day wasted, so then put it in to sketch up yesterday and started rendering, but I hadn't cut any plants people or made any trees yet so after not doing a great deal yesterday and a hell of alot of faffing, got up really early today, spent 4-5 hours making sure I had everything I needed for all of my sketches,  trees people plants the lot, then spent the rest of the day rendering this sketch which im happy with still alot of work to do on it but get on with the rest now, deadline is tomorrow night for the sketches,  doesnt look like ill have a model of either the 1-50 or 1-200 which is a shame seeing as we did set out to do it and have been working about 14hours every day for the past 3 weeks, couple of days of for work but generally thats the score but still haven't achieved enough, but can only do what we can here is the sketch from hell, who the hell decided to put canopies in my scheme, idiot!!!!   

Thought I would post these, just bits I found on the west 8 site, pretty good I think, I still would like to combine hand and PS as I think they have much more impact and personality but my hand will not allow me those attributes, never mind keep trying

Slightly Rendered Section - Not as good as I thought I would be ummmm

Here is an attempt at rendering a section, tried doing plants with PS and it made it look like a cartoon, so gonna cut out some plants tomorrow and people and hopefully that will bring it to life at bit as it looks really flat and static at the moment, see how it goes tomorrow.

Sections - Cad

Well been working on my sections for the past couple of days, a day over my schedule but never mind, try and get them annotated tonight, and then render tomorrow hopefully, I drew them straight from my Cad model, in the same model then measured and drew from there, worked really well actually, A tip from Harriet!! Well here they are nothing to really look at but hopefully they will look better once they are rendered.

Planting Plan

This took far longer than expected, I really struggled to start with, head was filled with way to many plants and couldn't get out what I really wanted the scheme to feel like, But after looking through some helpfull books and magazines finally had a plant list that was bigger than me but at least I had one.  above is the feeling I want to try to create, hot,warm colours mixed with cooler but still vibrant ones, with an airy feeling, dreamy and tactile - lets see how it goes !!

From the list I then decided what was going to go in each bed, tried to stick to it but naturally things changed, but overall I hope I created a scheme that reflects what I can see in my mind.

There were defiantly to many species overall that I was trying to fit into each bed, which came to light as soon as I tried putting some in, The beds to the west of the area were the first ones that I attempted , which shows as they are to cramped, I really struggled to start with, trying to figure out how to set everything out, using the right leaders or placing the name on the area, by the end I managed to get things abit clearer and easier to understand, also the actual planting got much better, using bigger swathes and interplanting areas with bulbs or just other tall perennials, Got there in the end but still a lot of work to do on it as I have to revisit what I did to start with, never mind. Here it is, hasnt got a key at the mo but the hatched areas are Alchemilla mollis/xanthochlora, 

The drawing above is the raised vegetated canopy that is pretty much a green roof, It has two types of sedum that is indicated by the hatch and the rest is a mixture of Calluna , green, orange and silver planted in staggered lines. needs a key and some areas of the canopy are light wells whcih look the same as planting areas so gonna have to sort that out as well, too tired last night but will have it done by the crit.

This is where I got the idea of Calluna for the roof- pretty impressive!! for a heather garden!!

Starting my sections today, need to get them all drawn today to then annotate and render over the next two days, then sketches done by thursday, then model done by sunday, print everything sunday, and then hopefully get some good sleep before the crit so I can then actually talk. ahha

1- 50 - Attempt at rendering the plan

Below is my first attempt at rendering my plan, manage to do this much in about 9 hours so quite please, but still not quite how I want it but happy with the result so far, keep trying, its the best rendering I have done so far,

Change my trees to photoshop trees, which work better as they are clearer and crisp, and found that I can use my swatches as a brush, thats how I created the rendering for the planting.

Easter progress - Slow - 1- 50

Having to get more organised, bought a diary, making sure I know what Im doing each day and setting targets for that day, trying to stick the them is another matter, we worked out we have 51 days left and 19 + A1 sheets to get finished, Sounds ok when you say it like that but that is 1 sheet every 2.5 days finished completely. Doesnt sound so good now! We have 17 days left of Easter and a few will be taken up by working ( Need the Money) and some other will be taken up by the green engineering course! So starting to panic and really trying to crack on. These two sheets below have taken me far to long but Im happy with the progress and the outcome, there not anywhere near finished but Im making my self blog once a day from now on wards to show my progress to myself, will hopefully keep me positive about what Im achieving. So below is my hardworks key plan with a finished key and a page set up, noticed some tweaks as I missed some hatching out on certain parts and other things, still need to do more key details but at least its on it way. 

Below is the preliminary page set up for my 1 50 rendered plan, think I have my title block sorted, still need to add a paving hatch to render over and other tweaks, tweaks that seem to take forever, thought I was nearly finished drawing the plan up about 4 days ago but oh no.  

One thing I am really pleased about is my confidence with CAD, I was putting it off and off but over the past 3 weeks I really have learnt a hell of alot seeing as I hadn't even opened it for about 18 months Im pleased with the outcome of my line dwgs. At one of those stages were im not sure what to do next, either completely finish these sheets or move on and come back to them, gonna try and get my key for the render plan done this eve so I can just slot the PS render back in when I have rendered it. We are going to my parents for a couple of days for Easter, going to the orchard dene nurseries tomorrow, I worked around the area for 5 years and didint even no it existed so will post some stuff on that tomorrow, maybe off to Waterperry gardens nearly oxford on Saturday, not sure we can spare the time but havnt seen the parents for 4 months, go and relax for 2 days we think

A day out - Fresh air - Beautiful weather

Yesterday was such a beautiful day and we got up early and headed off to Dover esplanade, the drive there from our house is wonderful, seeing the landscape change from the green hilly areas of Tunbridge wells through the, well at the moment very dry and flat areas along the M20 for it then to change significantly as you approach Dover. I was surprised by the area surrounding Dover as peoples views of Dover are that is a miserable and run down place, I think the weather helped but I thought that the approach to Dover is something special, it had a sense of industry and history that I thought would not exist. Anyway, getting there about half ten meant that the light was beautiful and people were still stirring and a relaxed atmosphere was all around. 

The promenade was a true success, People were using all aspects of the area, people seating within the alcoves of the twisting, rippling textured walls, people were skating along the resin bonded main promenade and kids were running along the lower walk ways. Before going I thought that the scale of the twisting alcoves would be much greater, and a sense of enclosure would be created, but I was wrong and  it worked just how it was. The parallel road of Edwardian town houses gives a great back drop to the scheme, whether  this was restored with the promenade Im not sure but they were fantastic. One of the main things that struck me was that  there was no shelter from the sun or the rain, It was only about 18 degrees yesterday so it was fine that there was no shade but I could imagine that during the height of summer the heat along with the glare from the white walls would be quite unbearable. This really made me think about the shelter and enclosed spaces in my scheme, which was always my first area to focus on and im glad I did. Im glad I have areas that encapsulate the elements giving people a sense of connection with the landscape but also I defiantly need  the areas I have design for people to be able to view the landscape with out being to exposed. 

Another thing that struck me was the lack of planting, I really think that with the added textures of planting this scheme would really come alive, although I truly like this scheme and the concept I found it fairly static, mainly because of the lack of movement that plants would give. The amount of trees that were planted was worrying as this would also provide some shade in the later afternoon. 

Overall I really enjoyed this space and It brought to life a sense of what Im trying to create, as in people feeling free enough to sit and relax and enjoy the landscape that surrounds them and being part of it rather than an element of scheme that is not focused on what true makes a space work, the area that it sits within. 

After Dover we took a coastal tour of Deal, Sandwich, then Canterbury and Finally Whitstable for a well earned couple of ales! 

Sun setting in Whitstable Bay 

1- 500 Model

Forgot to put this up the other evening, It took me a hell of alot longer than I thought, very time consuming, It did make me think about how it fits within the site and I wish I had made it much bigger to incorporate more of the town. Live and learn!!