It was the Summer of 1980, and my parents commissioned an architect to design them their house. After going through the process and falling in love with the 2D plans, my father started construction. I remember my father took a few months off of work, and I helped after school and weekends. Some of the design elements, after actually building them were, not so good. I mean in 2D they looked good, but after actually seeing them in reality, not so much.
My favorite past time growing up was drawing. I always drew; you could always find me with some kind of drawing utensil in my hand. Like many, if not most, my drawing stopped once I got a little older. Even when I was in college for design and architecture, I didn't draw, we had computer-aided design (CAD). After college, I went to work in construction, and I saw homeowners struggle to understand the 2D drawings that they were given, and it sparked something in me. I remembered back to when my parent was reviewing their 2D plans.
In the early 90's I took up drawing again, and this time it was architecture. I started taking the architect's 2D drawings and transferring them into 3D architectural sketches, or I guess you could call them renderings. However, at this early stage, they were just pencil drawings. I remember the architects didn't like it because it usually caused the homeowners to make late design changes, and it held things up on the construction site. My premise was, and still is, it is cheaper to change something on paper than the construction site.
After a few years, my construction site pencil sketches turned into art. I started playing with different media, added color, and I took a lot of liberties. Light and shadow took precedence over actual site conditions and real-world locations. Okay, why my life story? When I received the Manchester Modern Farmhouse 2D drawings, I didn't see a whole lot. It looked like a small house, and I wasn't' seeing farmhouse. Not until I built the 3D model and added textures and materials did I start to appreciate the house. My mind flashed back to the early days of why I actually started drawing architecture. Had these 2D drawings been viewed by someone, I couldn't imagine much emotion would be evoked. However, ad perspective, light, and shadow, and it become something else, something someone could fall in love with.
Manchester Modern Farmhouse Rendering
25+ years later, I am still drawing and making a living doing so. I rarely pick up a pencil or paper anymore, and now I use a monitor and mouse. To tell you the truth, it takes more than a monitor and mouse, it takes a lot of high-end hardware to compute the information I give it. Not only does it take high-end software-hardware, but it also takes a couple decades of knowledge and wisdom using art theory. Face it, one thing software, hardware can't do is be creative, which has become my niche!
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