[sdinenno]

I'm just getting into landscape design and I'm considering taking a course in landscape design graphics at a local technical college. But I'm pretty good with computers and terrible at hand drawing, and I was wondering if my time would be better spent learning to design on a CAD system rather than learning to hand render designs (I have PRO Landscape which has a nice CAD system).

I'm not suggesting that I should skip courses in design principles, only the class that focuses on hand drawing. Some people tell me that I need to learn to draw by hand but I know that I would be slow at it and I just don't believe that I'm going to be doing things that way in the real world (I'm a self-employed landscaper so I'm not going to be looking for a job).

My question is this: If I skip over this class, is it likely that I would miss things that would be necessary for me to know in order to properly render things with CAD? The answer I really want to hear is no, because I dread the thought of having to draw things by hand. But if I'm going to miss something that's essential, then I'd rather take the course.

[agla]

I draw like crap with my hands too. I actually dropped out of landscape architecture in the early eighties for that reason. I went back and got my degree in the mid 90s after cad really came along.

I have to tell you that drawing in cad is no different than drawing by hand if you want your drawings to look good. No cad course is going to teach you how to do that. It really will make a difference in making your drawings look good, I hate to say. You will learn a lot and you can apply it all to cad.

You could skip it, but your drawings will probably look bland.

I always draw in cad. I don't say my drawings are great, but they are much much better because I learned the principles of hand drawing. After the course, you don't ever need to pick up a pencil again. I didn't.

[rye]

I like the idea of taking the class. Drawing instruction will help you understand things like line weight, "layering" of plant material graphics, etc. You may pick up some important design principals as well. Like AGLA i left an LA program (for other reasons). I am a 'sloppy' drawer and worse at hand lettering (though a client of mine -a builder - loves my imperfect hand drawn stuff) Compared to many of my competitors who design literally on yellow notebook paper, it looks pretty good (nothing wrong with this method if it gets a point across)

But i am switching to dynascapes- i like the ability to add photos of plant material, speed of revisions, and storage of drawings electronically. I need to step it up in order to grow my business- in other words- charge for design services and sell larger or more complicated concepts. It is hard to justify design fees or communicate ideas clearly on yellow notebook paper, or by sloppy pencil drawings.

So, invest in education early, i think it will pay off in the long run. Applies to CAD or hand drawings.

[PSUscaper]

I'd take a class just for the reason there is a lot going on with both cad and dynascapes and without the classes, you may never learn all the little tricks that increase speed and overall appearance.

There are commands I don't know about yet, and I would like to take a more advanced course some day, and I've been using it for over 10 years.

Dynascapes offer classes that would probably be most beneficial if you are going to go that route. Also, many of the local colleges are using Dyna in their landscape programs, so you may want to investigate.

Learning Cad is somewhat like riding a bike. Once you learn, you kind of grasp the basics and never forget.

[trees]

Take the drawing class.

My manual artistic skills are very limited, too and I use CAD almost exclusively, but having the knowledge of how hand-rendering works will be invaluable for your presentation skills.

Besides, I think you'll find that even those of us with limited artistic chops can learn to put together a serviceable (if not beautiful) collection of decorated circles...

[10west]

Do both, but remeber, after learning a few "hand drawn" grapics basics, for depth and lineweight, texturing, etc, you can just plop a tissue over a plot from cad, or oblique and perspective, and just trace the forms for design iterations.
The other thing is, AutoCAD is getting alot more powerful, for using images from hand drawn or sampled sources, and you can always scan a sketch, scale it simply, and use it for presentation bases, and cost estimation querying in AutoCAD, or just to layout in a source for easy digital output.

Autodesk Architectural Desktop, has a command known as Napkin which will create a vector overlay, that looks like a loose architect, or landscape designer did the line work, and it is very reliable, and very quick, but as far as I know, it's only available in ADT.
HP and others may still make aplot driver, which, in a twist of effect, applies a handdrawn look to the plot outpit. When I sae this, in AutoCAD 14, I knew at that time it was the best, and I think still may be, but I could not find it in later release supports for acad, from hp, but theymay be there.
There is also a sketch.lsp routine, which in a few forms on the internet, such as at cadopolis.com, or other searches, provides a line variation, you can adjust from the command line.
AutoCAD, also has, in tangent with the SKPOLY system variable, a command called SKETCH, which allows you to trace, on screen, which may be nice, with a tablet and pen, rather than the mouse.
Maybe late, but it still applies, to someones knowledge.

[cadman]

I too use ProLandscape software. I like it. As far as which way to do the designs - that would be which ever you are most comfortable with. Sounds like a copout but I used to do all by hand and now I strickly go with CAD. It is ( 2 me ) more precise and sure is cleaner. I use it only for residences that are not too expansive. That meaning larger properties are the ones I do by hand on graph paper. Taking courses is great. It's never too late to learn new techniques. Just curious, do you also use the Image Editor? AK