i miss monday crits!!!

i thought - right ok adele, you know what you need to do , so just get on and do it- so i am following my geeky timetable (and have stuck to it so far!!) but i do miss the extra pressure that the monday crits bring!
As long as i stick to the timetable i should be fine- i just hope i dont spend too long on any one element-
im very pleased that i cracked the AUTOCAD ! done my 1:200 plan, from this i can use the planting plan, hard works layout, drainage and setting out plan too- hopefully that will be enough to tick the AutoCAD box !!!??!!!

moving on ,,,,,,,

Volunteers wanted - Great Dixter

Volunteers wanted at Great Dixter

As advertised:


We are looking for volunteers to help our visitors find out more about practical garden tasks at Great Dixter. You will be based around the garden at portable potting benches, helping with potting on and other horticultural tasks as well as talking to and answering visitors’ questions.
Volunteers will work during our open season which is between April and November. Training about the
garden and the tasks you will be expected to perform will be provided.

To apply or for more information please contact
Catherine Haydock: education@greatdixter.co.uk   01797 254048

,,one of the famous pot displays, changed and rearranged every two weeks throughout the year!!

Colour concept planting - Sissinghurst Inspiration

Colour concept planting-
The planting colours range from the silvers and whites through to the blues and purples to represent the journey of the water- from crashing over the rocks in the cascade to the deeper, calm of the large pond.


Sissighurst`s White Garden
It is really important to realise why all the different forms of white work in this space, it is all due to the permanent structure, from the evergreen boundaries to the central pergola that supports the rambling rose.
I took these pictures last August, the garden was still looking magical.

From above you can really see and appriciate the permanent structure

and its importance within the space, 





1: 200 -- 1:50 refinement

Here is a small area of my 1:200 plan rendered, its pencil over a light colour print out, this means i dont have to press down so hard on the pencil and end up in agony after days of rendering- as i know doupt will be over the next month! I much prefer hand drawn work, i do like the quality finnish that a computer can give but the process to achieve that is much less enjoyable.  This is the main reason i have chosen to do all my work by hand, its funny even after all the experimenting of different techniques and methods of rendering iv gone back to pencils and paints!

- here the water, paving, stone, hedges and planting have been rendered in pencil

1:50 area refinement process

The Source-

The concept of the water-  its source, its course and its movement.

Every desicion made is always dictated by the concept-

from the choice of matirials to how they are used,

the choice of plants and what i am trying to show with them.

Below is a quick concept diagram to show how the hard matirials  reprecent the energy of the water :

movement and sound gradually becoming smooth and calm

My well earned day off!!

Today i needed a day off, a day away from the computer and in need of plenty of fresh air.
So the day started by getting up nice and early and going to the market to see what was on offer, turns out there wasn't much there today, but i love to have a look around- you never know what you might find!
We then went to the allotment for afew hours, got a few rows of our second early potato's in - Maris peer , weeded all the empty beds and sprinkled green manure seeds on some of the beds that did not have anything in them over the winter.  We had one of our last bonfires for this winter ( its not aloud after 1st April ) i love the smell of bonfires.  It was busy there today, everybody working hard but there is always time for a natter- us all saying how happy we are to be back on the allotment and to get back into it.  The effects the sunshine has on people is magic.

Then as we do every Tuesday we went over to Medway to pick up the nephew from school and look after him for the evening- as it was a beautiful day we went straight to `Riverside Country Park' for a few hours- it was particularly beautiful there today,

in the distance you can see the power station on the Isle of Grain

many ship wrecks make this place a real adventure when your with a 9 year old!

here we had just taken over the island and Jacob was the worlds greatest explorer,

 a washed up boat engine ,once the heart of a working vessel

 now all seized up and covered in moss - but still as beautiful,

 as the hours went on ,,, who can throw the stone the furthest,,,,



Just another manic monday ,,,,

 ,,,,aaagghhh!!! I wish it was Sunday!!!

Songs aside, a manic Monday indeed- after spending all week working on a photo shop technique for my plan and sections, turns out that the rendering of any plan ,section or drawing  arnt as important as i thought -
We have now been told that getting all the drawings ( in ink )and annotated first is most important - then render. Ok this is fine i had done all my drawings in ink that's why i tried the photo shop method- however i had not finished all my annotation- so now i know
- ink
- annotation 
- render

This week :
-finnish the 1:200 plan- (in ink , annotated with a key with a third/strip rendered)
-planting plan/shedule 1:200 (CAD)
-print off chosen 1:50 area on A1

For Advanced Rep:
- start designing and building my website

Photoshop Nightmare!

OK i have tried to render my plan and sections in photo shop for the past 2 days!! this is crazy- if i had stuck to hand render it would be done by now! So its now looking like im not going to have all the work that is preferred to be as complete as possible on Monday as we are going to move on to the next 1:50 scale.
Here are my quick hand drawn sections that took no time at all then the ONE section i have managed to do on photoshop! = taking me 4 hours!!! Not good!


The key 4 working sketch section- (done on grease proof paper):

,,,,,,,,,,,and the one section i have done so far in photoshop:

the problem is i don`t think its at any better standard then my quick working section even though they took me 5 times as long!!!

multi stemed trees!

Within my design i have a number of multi stemmed trees together, i am now trying to find an image / precedent to show the effect they will give. This is proving very difficult the best i have come up with so far are:

The new winter garden at Battersea Park , designed by Dan Pearson - its center piece is a group of multi-stemmed Persian ironwood trees and five Westmoreland boulders.  The habit of these trees are similar to the multistemed Alnus viridis i wish to use in my park-



 Les jardin de l`arche - Giles Clement



Mass planting of Salix 

San de aviosio



Dan Kiley, the Miller residence:  This is the image I'm trying to find with a high enough resolution for my precedent images, as scanning it from a book isn't good enough- the search continues.  I think the light flat plane of the gravel to the dark tall multistemmed branches make a perfect contrast.

Auto CAD or not to Auto Cad ?

To AutoCAD or not to AutoCAD that is the question???

I'm now in a dilemma -so far all my work has been done by hand , I'm told this is fine but by doing the line work of a plan in CAD first does give it a certain professional finish and it will also show the external examiners that I'm capable of using CAD.
- the only problem- is i will have to invest time into redrawing the plan in cad , and as i haven't used it since last summer it might take me a while!
-the plus-is once done i will never need to redraw again with the help of layers i can have everything on one model space- it will also make the next stage at 1:50 a little easier - (i hope)

OK i think i have just talked my self into doing the plan in CAD - but will this look right next to hand drawn perspectives and sections? i guess if i am using the same rendering techniques it will all look coherent!!!!

Any thoughts?

Branding - buisness card and letter head.

In advanced representation we were asked to design a business card and letter head for ourselves- i found this difficult as i wanted so many different thing - but it does need to be simple too! Its a difficult one

I came up with a few and presented them all, but I'm not convinced that my tutor was at all happy with them- which is fine but i would like to get this write- its important to have my personality, my image on the card so that it is distinctly mine-

these ,made of recycled cardboard were to show- eco and sustainable thinking

but they lack something,

bright, young and happy = me

but look too much like a florist card!

Here is the matching letter head:

Clean , simple- a touch of colour to show vibrancy and youth,

with the eco square, royal purple to contrast with the young orange

This is the one i have chosen , for now at least,,,

Here is the matching letter head: