Grace in Grit goes Green

Here are some Practice Renderings of retreat center/ natural history museum I worked on during the Summer 2010

Building front view (clean): learning to use and blend colors from light to dark using copic watercolor markers

Because I had never worked with color before, I was very fortunate to get some really good advice from this comic artist named Ryan Liebe at the Art Store in Prescott. The people who worked at the store were incredibly friendly and helpful. Often they even let you try the products before you bought them.

Building rear view (clean): learning to use and blend colors from light to dark using copic watercolor markers

In this rendering, I went a little heavy-handed at the baseline. The intent was to illustrate the effects of light entering the top right-hand corner of the page. I wanted to create the effect that a south-facing rear view would display at sunrise by positioning the sun toward the east from the south-facing view so that you could get the full effect of the building’s passive solar features.

I worked on these during Summer 2010 while I was in attendance at ECOSA Institute. Here are some of the preliminary stages I went through before I could construct these renderings in order to get the scale and dimensions right. It was here that I learned how to use tracing paper overlays and Google Sketchup.

Building front view ( landscape): experimenting with light, shadow & topography using copic watercolor markers

I really liked the lighting on this rendering for the home. I would have done some things differently with the landscape in retrospect to illustrate a better sense of perspective in this piece. I realize that I didn’t quite get the lines right in the foreground to create a definitive edge and height. Looking now, I probably should have added a thicker line to delineate the cliff edge and incorporated a more volumetric use of shading to convey the use of shadow. I also wonder whether it would have been wise to clarify the planar curves — which I’ve gotten much better at depicting since I’ve taken Calculus III.

Building rear view ( landscape): experimenting with light, shadow & perspective using copic watercolor markers

This was my midday piece. With the spring sun hanging high overhead, I practiced incorporating the use of overlap, shading and lighting to create a better sense of perspective in the image; which was safe, but did not necessarily illustrate the degree of complexity I would have liked to depict within a desert landscape. But for my first attempts at rendering I didn’t think they were too bad.

Uprooted

I’ve had a long journey, and I imagine it isn’t far from over. I think the craving for stability has made me afraid to uproot from the first place that I’ve ever lived that has felt safe enough to call home. I have a wonderful community here. But I think my craving for alignment with my sense of purpose is beginning to change that. I think that I definitely had it as a student, but as an employee, it’s hard to know how to inspire the young people in my charge to live their values when I have neglected to do so as well. If I don’t ever leave the nest and get out there to pursue my dream, I’m not exactly a reputable role model now am I? So I’m beginning to feel a bit of excitement about finding a program that’s a good fit — and in alignment with the kind of work I want to be involved in.