James Akers
Can You *Really* Design In Procreate?? | ...

Can architects and designers *really* design in Procreate, or is it just a glorified digital sketchbook? In today's tutorial for architects, designers and students, I demonstrate the "super powers" of Procreate that make it the ideal choice to imagine your design, develop it in scale, then hand it off for further development in Rhino or Sketchup. What makes Procreate such a powerful design tool is that it combines the best of both worlds…

Can You *Really* Design In Procreate?? | Procreate for Designers
James Akers
From My Perspective

Good things really do happen when you expect them the least.

For years I’ve been on the lookout for good ways to explain the advantages of designing and rendering by hand with Procreate, versus traditional designing and rendering by hand with pencil on paper. I haven't found the exact right words yet, but I keep looking.

Then this morning I woke up and saw on Twitter that the cartoonist Gary Larson was starting to cartoon again. He retired from drawing "The Dark Side" about 10 years ago, but according to this announcement he was starting to draw again-- for fun. Not the deadline-based, cartooning with which he entertained the world for 15 years, but drawing for his own amusement. Naturally my interest was peeked! But then it got better.

From My Perspective
Procreate app technique
James Akers
Gestural Concept Sketching Techniques for Use ...

In today's masterclass, I show you how quick gestures with Procreate brushes can be all you need to create compelling concept design renderings full of life and energy

Gestural Concept Sketching Techniques for Use with Procreate Over Sketchup
Procreate app technique, Sketches
James Akers
Procreate, Architecture & Design: Sketching ...

In today's masterclass, I show you how designing with sketches can give your ideas the time and attention they need to grow, bringing your client into the creative process, as opposed to shutting them out with the false promise of half-baked photorealistic concept designs.

Procreate, Architecture & Design: Sketching as an Essential Step Before Digital Photorealism
Procreate app technique, Sketches
James Akers
Procreate, Architecture & Design: Sketching ...

In today's masterclass, I show you how Procreate can help you develop the details of your design, while simultaneously creating sketches that make your design real and "human" to your client.

Procreate, Architecture & Design: Sketching As Part of the Design and Presentation Process

Current events

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Hacking Gmail to Keep Track of Your Favorite Internet Discoveries

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One of the reasons I love gmail is because of the many ways you can casually hack it. For example, when I come across a post or an idea on the internet that I want to keep track of, I email it to myself with the word "Keeper" (as in fishing) in the title. Then I set up a filter that keeps everything with the word "Keeper" in the title in a folder named Keeper. That way all I have to do is click on the Keeper folder (in the left hand list of folders in my gmail) and boom: everything is right there.

OK, so you already knew that, great. But did you put the following amazing link in your Keeper folder? It's a kind of storyboard that a favorite illustrator of mine, Christoph Nieman, created after hearing an interview between Terry Gross and Maurice Sendak. I'm sure he had help at the NYT turning it into this sweet little video, but please enjoy:

 

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A Great Book To Read For People Who Love Understanding The Underlying Structure of Things, Including Designers, Architects and Architectural Renderers

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If you like learning about the underlying structures that shape the physical, economic and political landscape of our country since day one, then I have a book for you: Common Landscape of America, 1580 to 1845 by John Stilgoe. As alluded to in an earlier post, the book provides timeless insight into the collisions of culture that continue to shape the contemporary American experience, right up to yesterday's 2013 Presidential Inauguration Ceremony, and, I dare say, the most recent TV or newspaper story you watched or read today.

John Stilgoe's Common Landscape of America, 1580 to 1845, is a classic book and required reading of all first year students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

John Stilgoe's Common Landscape of America, 1580 to 1845, is a classic book and required reading of all first year students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. I've got an architectural watercolor rendering to do today (Yay!) so I'll keep my part of this post short, but check out the excerpt below from the chapter on the history of schoolhouses on the subject of a book written by Jedidiah Morse in 1789 called The American Geography.The book was an off-the-charts bestseller which coincided with the growing movement, eventually mandated by the "tyrannical" federal government, to educate all American children in communal schoolhouses, almost always one-room affairs which have a fascinating history relative to where they were built (usually the most central place, or on a piece of waste land donated by a farmer, but almost invariably in the most difficult-to-get-to and foreboding locations within each school district). Due to its fortuitous timing, the book had perhaps a disproportionate influence on the opinions of generations of young Americans, and is even given credit for much of the misinformation which started the California Gold Rush of 1849. As Stilgoe sets it up: "Topographical knowledge no longer only derived from topographical experience: Morse filled his books with maps, charts and lengthy prose descriptions of states, regions, rivers, territories, forests, soils and agricultural and mineral riches...Morse emphasized that his information was scientific and reliable, and schoolmasters commanded students to memorize it. Scholars learned that New Hampshire was filled with mountains and cascades, that North Carolina "abounds with medicinal plants and roots"...and that the Spanish Dominions truly needed American improvement." Now here's where it gets crazy (and racist)...

The Thing I Don't Get About The People Who Hate Clinton and/or Obama

One of the things that has always confused this architectural renderer is that the same people who hate Clinton and Obama tend to also be the same people who praise the virtues of hard work and independence. So which kind of a president would you rather have running things: the "hard working" George W Bush, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, ex-party boy and Yale frat boy class comedian who cynically "found" born-again Jesus to get more votes; or Bill Clinton, the son of a hairdresser who bootstrapped himself into Yale (and Oxford and Georgetown) by his own wits? Then there's Barack Obama, the black son of a single mom and Kenyan dad who got himself into Harvard. I mean, do conservatives who praise these traits of character see the disconnect?

Reflection in a puddle in the parking lot of Haven Restaurant in Lenox, MA. Did you figure out it's upside down?

Of course, it's not really about that, is it? It's not about preferring to have the guy in there who will be more thoughtful about the decisions he makes, from starting wars to repairing the nation's infrastructure to providing opportunity to the maximum number of people who, by no fault of their own get dealt dramatically different hands at birth. It's about conveniently forgetting the...

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A New Party Game

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Here's an idea for a new game. If you're ever at a party and there's a lull in the action, pull out your smartphones and play "The Auto-complete Game." Here are the directions:

  1. Launch the browser on your smartphone
  2. type in a short phrase that contains one of the following words: who, what, when, where or how, as in "who played..." and then just end the phrase there (you don't have to add the ellipses)
  3. Look at the list of suggested answers that Google provides as a function of their "auto-completion" feature (note: the suggestions provided are based on Google's analysis of the most recent and most popular search queries in the world beginning with the phrase you entered)
  4. Ask the other party guests to...

     

     

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How To Weigh 200 Pounds (A New Way to Exercise)

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But the thing is you always have this nagging idea that you aren't getting enough exercise because your pants are still getting tighter and also because you look things up on the internet, like how many calories is there in a glass of wine, or should I drink beer or scotch tonight instead. (The answer, disturbingly, is about 300) And how many glasses of wine are in a bottle (the answer is, there are supposed to be four. If you to a restaurant with four people and watch the waiter pour if you don't believe me you'll see that that's what they get taught) because I hope there's a lot of glasses supposed to be in a bottle because it seems like I just had two big ones and it hasn't even gotten to the rachel Maddow show yet and I'm down to about a third of that bottle left

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How Funny Were The Golden Globes Last Night?

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Did you catch the Golden Globes last night? Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were brilliant. I don't know why I get embarrassed hearing Hollywood stars getting lampooned in real time. I mean, they've got money, they've got egos, why do I care if they are uncomfortably humiliated in public? Of course it's the ones who retain their composure under fire that draw one's admiration. Maybe that's why they trot themselves out for the ceremony; to say to 25 million viewers, "see, we can handle being made fun of!"

Still, that one guy, Christian something or other, winning for Django? I mean, yeh, he was awesome in Inglorious Basterds--spine-tingling, jaw-dropping awesome--but best-supporting actor? I don't know.

Of course, Daniel Day Lewis for Lincoln was perfect. Have you seen it yet? Did you read Doris Kearns Goodwin's book that inspired it? If you haven't, drop everything and do so.

Well, that's it for today's post. Hope you like the rendering I did (below) for David Rockwell's 2010 Oscar's set. I also threw in a project we did for the magician David Copperfield about twenty years ago. When you get right down to it, it's pretty fun working with David. Any predictions for the Oscar's? [Wow, it's liberating writing a blog when you can be confident no one is reading it! :)]

Oh...almost forgot...for all of you search engine spiders and crawlers trying to figure out what this page is about (fellow human beings, please stop reading here and get back to your regularly scheduled lives): let me just add that the artists and architects who practice watercolor techniques, architectural rendering, architectural watercolor rendering, architectural sketching, watercolor rendering techniques, architectural sketches, watercolor techniques, architectural rendering or any of the other disciplines associated with traditional architectural rendering are few and far between. But fear not: some of us are still here, and we're a lot of fun to work with. Have a great Monday, my friends.

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