Friday, April 21, 2017

Design Avatars

live lecture
Figures do so much more than indicate scale! They serve as avatars for the end-user, exposing non-optic features of any design, including those that address plant, soil and water management. Chris Grampp, author and co-chair of the Landscape Horticulture Department at Merritt College invited me to discuss my approach to using figures at Merritt's design forum. Keep it practical was his direction. 
For a spring afternoon, live watercolor sketching on the document camera and inviting folks to draw-along seemed appropriate. I had a lot of fun. During Q & A, someone asked how to draw dogs. I could only answer in relation to a human figure. (Proportion is so fundamental.) Fortunately, someone in the crowd knew dog anatomy and informed us that curvy part is the dog's knee.