Just a few pics from our back porch tea party. We have some delicious treats from Lovejoy’s in SF plus some extra crumpets and pastries.
The side yard is growing in nicely
“Everyone needs a sideyard”, as my boss tends to say. Usually she is talking about people needs a messy work area - a place to keep shovels and buckets, etc.
In this case, as we only have one side yard, I wanted it to be a beautiful entrance to our garden. The crappy stuff is hidden in a back a bit.
We are finding that this side yard stays nice and cool during the summer The bamboo is growing in to add shade and will hopefully screen the house from our very nice neighbor at some point. I love the way the path turned out. It is very weird to remember that this whole area was mostly underground previously and then WAS a trash area for quite a while as we did the deck construction and laundry room rebuild in the back.
A fine and shady spot to drink a cocktail and have some snacks.
I am a tad concerned for the changing light over the seasons in this area. It is mostly full sun on one side in the summer and then in winter it really does become all shady with some morning and evening light. Originally I wanted this inch to be a live edge bench but with all the chaos and decision fatigue of construction we just went with whatever. It’s nice enough!
Cotinus ‘Grace’, Ceanothus ‘Diamond Heights, Bulbine ‘tiny tangerine’, Achillea and some Armeria
Tim got me that egret at Burning Man in 2012. As we were driving out someone had a bunch still up in their camp and he got out and asked if we could have one. I love it so!
Drawing Vicariously
I’m not heading to the ranch so T is sending me pictures. I am drawing them and it feels just as nice and meditative as getting to go up there.
Bird Sketchbook
I don’t usually have specific sketchbooks for septic things but maybe I should do that more often! I I started this with one sketch of a bird many years ago and I picked it up again recently and managed to finish the project!
some of the sketches are bad and some are great, as is usual in a sketchbook. Maybe I will make some stickers from the cutest ones.
flip through of a sketchbooks of cute small birds. ink and watercolor.
Landscape Sketchbook - Containers
Turquoise pots are just lovely aren’t they? I bought this one at Pottery and Beyond in Emeryville.
Moving a Palm Tree
The project we are working on now is big and fairly complicated. They have an amazing palm tree in the backyard that is in the way of the new pool pavilion we have designed for them. It's a residential lot with some weird angles and an existing pool and other built elements that are making siting the pavilion difficult. Hence, we are moving the palm. It is a huge and mature Brahea armata - Blue Palm, how much does this thing weigh?! A lot.
We called in the local 'Palm and Avocado Tree Guy', Gary Gragg, of Golden Gate Palms Nursery fame. You can visit the nursery in Richmond, California; find more info here: https://www.goldengatepalms.com/
We invited Gary out to take a look and to ask about the possibility of moving the palm. He comes out and says, "No problem, let's move this baby girl!" Or something like that, anyway.
Mature Blue Palm getting transplated
Gary is a bit of a character - outgoing, gregarious, knowledgeable, and very positive. A true and delightful plant geek. We actually had him out to our own house a few weeks ago to consult about avocados. My spouse is obsessed with having avocados. We bought three and they got planted all together in one large hole - 3 plants, one hole. Read what Gary has to say about avocados in the Bay Area here: https://www.goldengatepalms.com/avocados
Back to our Walnut Creek project... Gary and his crew arrive and maneuver their excavator/forklift into the backyard. The receiving hole has already been excavated and the palm is ready to go. After lifting the tree out of the hole, they decide to go get a smaller forklift. I love how insect-like this machine is!
We all leave for some lunch and freaking out. But Gary comes back with the new forklift and they get back to work. I go back to standing around watching and kind of squealing in alarm. At some point, the palm is off-balance and all the guys jumped on the back of the forklift to balance it out. I admire this "get it done" attitude that appears to be fairly reckless about personal safety, but at the same time I do NOT want to see someone get flung ass over teakettle onto the pavement.
They can't grab the tree from the base like I was expecting. Which makes sense, there is no way to keep it stable from that position. The thing is dang heavy. Instead, they grab it around the middle and slowly drive around the pool to its final resting place.
The pool toys gently drifting about is making me crack up for some reason. So serene!
HOPEFULLY, it will bounce back from this fairly traumatic move! Palms, as you can see from some of these photos, have a fibrous root ball rather than a tap root. They don’t mind being moved but it’s still a trauma and you never know! They need to keep the root ball HELLa moist for a while, while the palm acclimates.
Some Drawings
I just thought I would post some of the various painting and drawing I have been doing. Some of it is work related and some is not!
Green and gold watercolor swatches.
I did this quick visualization for a client recently. We want to remove this lawn, a little privacy fence (not too overwhelming) and some interesting colorful plants.
Okay, so I also took this irrigation class through the Zone 7 Water Agency. the class was taught by Lori Palmquist, who is an irrigation WIZARD. She’s a good speaker and a good teacher. I may also have accosted her about some APLD stuff and she was like WhoTF are you?!? LOL. No worries, Lady, I’m just a stranger asking you for access to this website you used to work on. Don’t mind me! Anyway, here is an illustration of an irrigation manifold. As you can see, I am an excellent student who does not struggle to pay attention.
I should be learning about what these things are and do but instead I am drawing them. Don’t come at me, I have ADHD.
We had a little field trip to Drake’s Beach and I did a quick vignette.
Some other sketchy doodles for work:
Visualizing Designs
I’m imagining that everyone has their own work flow for creating client visuals. I love 3D and, in fact, have a degree in 3D Animation and Computer Modeling (or something along those lines… it’s been a long time). Making 3D renderings look good is fairly time consuming and I often don’t love the final product. The time consuming part is what is important here though, I’m not sure your small to mid sized residential projects will want to pay for that time. The GOAL of these visuals is to help the client imagine their space and maybe it doesn’t have to super elaborate and 100% perfect and I need to remember that.
Right now I am using SketchUp. It’s good enough but I do still love that hand-drawn look. Lately I have been rendering a line drawing in SketchUp and then coloring over it. Here is an uncolored example.
Firepit with shrubs
Same view but with different plants and chairs.
And a color example. The color on this scan came out a tad weird but you can see how I go about making a test drawing and trying out markers.
I print out several and then us AD Markers to color. I do love to color!
My current process:
Create basic SketchUp model and use one of the sketch filters. Create several views and print them out.
Draw in the plants - sometimes I draw directly on to the print out and sometimes I do a more elaborate dance with tracing paper, rescanning, color adjusting in Photoshop but honestly that takes way longer.
Choose a coloring medium - I have been using AD Markers lately but sometimes I use colored pencils. I would love to do watercolor. One of the joys of watercolor is how fast and blendable they are. I have not really worked out HOW to do this yet though. I don’t think my printer will work even wth the flimsiest watercolor paper. I could trace the drawing on but haven’t tried that yet. Something to work on, I guess!
Then scan, color correct, and done!
I don’t have my own clients yet but I get to color other peoples designs and I freaking love it.
The above landscape designs are by Susan of Garden Alchemy.
Trees for Children's Play Environments
So plant ID classes can be very challenging. I’ve got some brain differences, including mild dyslexia, and memorizing a ton of plant names AND how to spell them is almost prohibitively impossible.
I’ve managed to soldier through life and all previous plant ID classes fairly well until taking Tree ID last semester. My LAST plant ID class required for me to graduate. I swear this one upset me so much because some large percentage of the grade was going to be on SPELLING. Spelling!!?
One of the grand things about life today is that there is the internet (a series of tubes) and spell check. Dyslexic people every where rejoice! Anyway. I have a Fine Art degree! Don’t ask me to spell!
For my final project for that class I had to get away from things I am bad at that make me feel terrible and like I am failing in 3rd grade again and get back to things I am good at, like illustration. I decided that illustrating a bunch of beautiful trees would sooth my fevered soul.
And, to make it more complicated (hello ADD), I thought it would be cool to turn those illustrations in to a book. Of course, I did not complete the project. I completed enough for the class but not quite enough to finish the actual book. I used Blurb to layout and print the book even though it wasn’t finished. I can finish it another time, right?!
Here are a few of the illustrations. I drew the whole tree and then a detail.
The Blurb software is called BookSmart and it’s … just okay. The final printed book is a little paperback and is so cute!
Here is the cover and some layouts
Foundation Bricks
Possibly a foolish decision… we asked the contractors to leave us the nicest bricks from our old, crumbling, 1896 brick foundation. Now we have this large pile of bricks in our backyard ready to collect spiders and who knows what else.
Little Free Libraries
Little Free Libraries are small personally managed 'take a book or leave a book' libraries. They are usually adorable. You can look at their Flickr gallery to see some examples of the awesomeness that people create.If you want to have your library registered and affiliated with the site you need to pay a small fee. They send you an official plaque and list your library on their map so people can find you.I would like to make mine with a green roof! I am not a builder type though and have no tools. I have a couple of friends who are and I plan on commissioning them to make this for me.
Here is my final concept:
Jumping and Creating
Kids playing in the'Nature Zone' Playspace.The tree stump circle is either used for jumping
or for building on...These are rolly poly houses.
Final houses:
Neighborhood Walks - Moss Edition
Map Dress and Landscape Brooches
I'm close to being done with this dress. I have been prototyping the brooches. First in tissue paper and then with wool felt and embroidery.
Christmas day nature art
I bought myself the book Land Art in Town: Simple Inspiration Through the Seasons for Christmas this year. It is an awesome book. The author, Marc Pouyet, hung out in cities across Europe and made and photographed his land art. I call it nature art and think of land art as bigger earthworks type stuff. I'm more drawn to this smaller scale, urban, unexpected art using nature.Here are some of the things my sister, son and I created.
