At A Glance: Drawings
Posted on: September 18, 2011 8 Comments
Deborah Silver is an accomplished and experienced landscape and garden designer whose firm first opened its doors in 1986.
Deborah Silver is a landscape and garden designer whose firm, Deborah Silver and Co Inc, opened its doors in 1986. She opened Detroit Garden Works, a retail store devoted to fine and unusual garden ornament and specialty plants, in 1996. In 2004, she opened the Branch studio, a subsidiary of the landscape company which designs and manufactures garden ornament in a variety of media. Though her formal education is in English literature and biology, she worked as a fine artist in watercolor and pastel from 1972-1983. A job in a nursery, to help support herself as an artist in the early 80’s evolved into a career in landscape and garden design. Her landscape design and installation projects combine a thorough knowledge of horticulture with an artist’s eye for design. Her three companies provide a wide range of products and services to the serious gardener. She has been writing this journal style blog since April of 2009.
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Wow….I love looking at the formal drawings….they are so beautiful in and of themselves. Ironic to come in from outside, log on and see this posting. And, am so happy to see our drawing on here ! Mathias and I have literally spent the last four hours measuring our drawing; translating it and plotting it on our actual property with little flags and marking spray paint; and are starting to get a real sense of the implications…it is ALL TOO EXCITING ! Of course, lots of questions as well…and a sense of how big a transformation this will all be. It is very inspirational. Also, you will be happy to know that we created another tracing paper overlay that fits over your schematic drawing where we have plotted out all the trees that we still have questions about and can now see the emergence of the key questions. A a beautiful way to start a beautiful Fall day.
Dear Michael, I could not be more pleased about your fall day in the garden. THAT is all too exciting! Deborah
I love landscape drawings so much I’ve been tempted to frame a few of ours and hang them on the wall in the study. Your post inspires me to go dig them out of the tubes where they’re currently stored and get them to the framer.
You’ve got me REALLY curious … what’s the “stars and stripes” theme shown in a couple of these drawings? Is this a resiential or commercial installation? Please reveal, if you’re at liberty to do so. It’s stunning!
Dear Anne, these two drawings were for annual plantings at Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan. I have 10 years worth of drawings for those gardens. The hotel was built during the Victorian era, so the Victorian style of bedding out annuals served as a starting place for the design of those gardens. Deborah
Dear Deborah,
Thank you for letting me know the origin of the Stars and Stripes drawings.
We live in TX, but have visited Mackinac Island and are familiar with the Grand Hotel’s beautiful grounds. Per previous posts, I’m aware you’ve done a lot of work for them through the years, but didn’t connect the dots.
10 years worth of Grand Hotel drawings? That’s a collection worthy of framing for sure! Don’t these incredible works of art deserve a dedicated ‘wall of honor’ at DGW?
Thanks for sharing these –
Anne
Dear Anne, I did the design work for Grand Hotel gardens from 1986-1996. I cannot remember why I took this one roll of prints out of the storage closet and put it on a shelf in my studio. All of the other prints are in there in boxes-I have not looked at them for 15 years. It might be fun to get them out, brush the dust off-and see if there is anything worth looking at there! Deborah
Deborah-
Do you do the drawings? It looks like a computer/hand combo?
Agreed- works of art in their own right!
I typically take a site plan or mortgage survey, and blow it up, or reduce it to 1″=10′. This is a scale I like to work with. I may write labels using microsoft word, if I need to. I do my drawings on trace, so a client can see what is existing underneath my drawing. This helps to illustrate what the changes will be. The last drawing in this post, Buck did recreate on CAD, as I needed to be able to email the file to the client. I do all of the drawings, yes.