3 Hand Rendering Styles for Landscape Architects

1. The Simple Black and White Render

This style is all about learning how to effectively use line weight, drawing hierarchy, and hatching to it’s full potential. This style is simple, but can make for the most bold statement drawings that you make whether it’s shown to piers, professors, or clients.

With that said here are a few tips for this render!

• Vary your line weight and line thickness from front to back for perspectives or top down for your plans.
• Use the darkest colors for what is most important or what is closest to you
• Use textures on buildings, walls, or other drawing elements to help provide insight on the materiality of things
• Use different forms of hatches to further show depth to your drawing (cross, vertical, horizontal hatch)
• Shade where you feel necessary to help add contrast and depth to the render!

2. A Pop Of Color Render

This style is very similar to the first except this time, we are using a pop of color to areas, or things that are most important to our drawing. This can be done in various different ways but for this drawing its fun to keep it loose and improvise where you feel necessary!

Some tips for this style!

• Stick to 3-5 distinct bright colors
• Color what brings the most life to your drawing or is the focal point of your drawing
• Have fun and remember the beauty behind the hand renders imperfections!
• Be creative and don’t be afraid to go bold with it!

3. Full Color Render

This style is much more traditional to a colored hand render you would see anywhere, but with a twist! and that twist is making the color render unrealistic! This makes for a more vibrant and visually interesting drawing and can sometimes be a cool alternative to the normal renders you see everyday!

Some tips for this style!

• start light and work your way dark in the areas you choose
• add shadows and contrast where you feel necessary to help tell the story
• use bright colors for the creative objects or ideas you created
• fade the color out as you move to the back of the drawing to help showcase depth and provide a clear focus to the foreground
• have fun!

Full Video Here: