Quick garden sketches

Quick garden sketches – big impact!

10. June 2025

Loose, freehand sketches are a fast and effective way to develop garden ideas — without getting lost in details like paving patterns or plant names. Instead, you focus on layout, flow, and form. That way, clients already get a clear picture during your conversation.

Usually, one version is later refined and presented. But why not sketch live during the consultation? It saves time, creates enthusiasm, and gets you into a creative flow.

If you’re confident with sketching, it will leave a strong impression — and a quick 3D sketch on site can take it to the next level.

👉 Want to learn how? Drop me a message — I’ll show you how to win clients with hand drawings.

Best regards, Daniel

The Leaning House in Ulm

8. May 2025

A drawing with double perspective

In this sketchbook page, I have oriented the lettering differently from the drawing. When looking at the drawing, the writing forms a graphic background. When I turn the picture, a new perspective opens up and the text tells the story of the leaning house. I’ve never done this before – but I find it very exciting because I also change the orientation of the image and text on the other pages of my sketchbook.

The Leaning House is one of the best-known and most striking buildings in Ulm. It is located in the picturesque fishermen’s quarter directly on the Blau, a tributary of the Danube. It was built in 1443 as a half-timbered house and originally served as a residence and warehouse for boatmen.

The building owes its name to its steeply sloping construction – it leans visibly to one side. The reason for this is the soft subsoil of river sediment, which has given way over the centuries. After being lovingly renovated, the Leaning House has served as a hotel since 1995. It was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the “most crooked hotel in the world”.

The Leaning House is an impressive example of medieval architecture – and shows how charming and lively historical architecture can still be today.

Best regards, Daniel

New: Drawing grid

15. January 2023

I would like to introduce you to our new product. You can buy the drawing grids in A3 format as an e-book from our new webshop. This makes it easy to print out the grid when you need it.

Axonometry, isometry, perspective

Supplementary e-book to the book Drawing in Garden Design. Interesting 3D drawings can be developed with the help of perspective and isometric grids. In this supplementary e-book to the standard work “Drawing in Garden Design”, you will find grid templates and field of view diagrams to get you straight to work.

Product details
PDF document in A3 format with various drawing grids and field of vision diagrams:
Axonometric grid 30°/60°
Sectional isometric grid 60°
Sectional isometric grid 30°
Isometric grid 30°/30°
Isometric grid 15°/30°
Isometric grid 15°/15°
Transfer grid 1:100
Single-point perspective grid 1.50/8.00m horizon height with field of view diagrams
Two-point perspective grid 1.50/8.00m horizon height with field of view diagrams

Price

15,00 € * incl. VAT. (as far as collected)

In the following video I will show you how you can develop up to 10 different 3D drawings with the documents. I explain how to use the grids in my book “Drawing in Garden Design”.
Best regards, Your Daniel Nies

GaLaBau 2022

18. September 2022

Unfortunately, this time we did not have our own stand at the GaLaBau trade fair in Nuremberg. But Jutta and I couldn’t stay away completely and we spontaneously visited the fair.
We met a lot of nice people who have already attended our seminars and are still raving about them. That made us very happy and felt really good.
Also in the photo are Thomas Roth and Stefan Schmid, both very esteemed friends who work at the HBLFA Horticulture Vienna-Schönbrunn.

Best regards, Daniel Nies

Sketchbook Exhibition in Venice

22. August 2022

Coming soon: The 12th Sketchbook Exhibition ‘Matite in Viaggio’ in Venice. Here, around 80 artists showcase their travel sketchbooks. It will be fascinating once again to admire the multitude of artistic styles. That’s wonderful! I’m excited to be part of this for the third time! Drawings from the Canary Islands and Germany were exhibited in 2017 and 2019.
This time, you can see drawings from my journey through Poland there.

The exhibition at the Candiani Cultural Centre in Venezia-Mestre
The Centro Candiani, Piazzale Candiani No. 7, 30174 Venezia-Mestre, runs from October 21st to November 6th.
October 21st (Friday) from 16.00 to 19.30
22nd (Saturday), 23rd (Sunday): from 10.00 to13.00 and from 16.00 to 19.30
27th (Thursday), 28th (Friday): from 16.00 to 19.30
29th (Saturday), 30 (Sunday) from 10 to 13; from 16.00 to 19.30
November: 3rd (Thursday), 4th (Friday) from 16.00 to 19.30
5th (Saturday), 6th (Sunday) from10.00 to 13.00 and from 16.00 to 19.30

Best regards, Your Daniel Nies

2017 with drawings from the Canary Islands

2019 featuring drawings from German cities

Drawing in garden design

12. July 2022

Now the time has come and the third edition of my book “Drawing in Garden Design” is available in stores. I am very grateful that the work is still in great demand since the first edition in 2008 and that the collaboration with Ulmer Verlag, especially with my editor Doris Kowalzik, is so inspiring and positive.
If you don’t have the book yet, you can order it directly from us. Even with a dedication and/or drawing on request.
Order book

Best regards, Your Daniel Nies

Binding sketchbooks

15. May 2022

This time I would like to show you how you can bind simple sketchbooks yourself in a short time.
The advantages are obvious: you can choose your own format and decide for yourself which papers to use.
If you would like to learn more about bookbinding or have high-quality sketchbooks made, I recommend the AltstadtBuchbinderei Augsburg by Elisabeth Zelck: www.altstadtbuchbinderei.de

Webinar: FreeDrawing with Daniel
In this 2-day webinar, we will draw in sketchbooks bound by me. Here you will learn practical drawing techniques for urban sketching.
More info

Best regards and have fun trying it out,
Daniel Nies

Anne Rose: The tower doesn’t fit on the sheet.

4. January 2022

Anne Rose Oosterbaan is an art director, founder, and organizer of Urban Sketchers Haarlem & VirtualSketch.
Her very interesting contributions on ‘Drawing for Urban Sketchers’ are published on the blog of the Urban Sketchers Nederland I was thrilled that one of my drawings is featured in Anne Rose’s latest post, No. 14, on the theme ‘THE TOWER DOESN’T FIT’ or in Dutch, ‘ZO KAN HET OOK.

The exciting thing about her articles is that they always showcase examples from numerous artists on a particular theme. For those who don’t understand either Dutch or English: No problem – pictures communicate beyond language.

Anne’s article in dutch

Anne’s article in english

I highly recommend the two reports on the topic of ‘Trees’
3. A tree in front of the building

10. Let’s draw trees

Best regards, Daniel Nies

Distributing motifs across multiple sketchbooks is a topic I often find myself exploring. Once, I even had to use five sketchbooks for that. By the way, I don’t leave that to chance; I pre-plan how many books the motif will be distributed across. Mehr Beispiele findest Du unter folgendem Link

Guest article by Henrike Houbertz: My exciting year of drawing

15. November 2021

I’m Henrike and I’m studying open space planning. This year I attended all of Daniel’s drawing modules in webinar format. My original plan was to only take the top view and view modules, I thought that would certainly be enough. But then I caught the drawing bug and enjoyed drawing so much that I completed all of Daniel’s modules one after the other. Daniel’s playful way of teaching all participants how to draw is simply great. I have made so much progress, I would never have thought it was possible.

Now hardly a day goes by without me drawing and it’s just so much fun and my drawings are really well received!

So if you sign up for one or the other course… – beware, addiction potential! 😉

Note from Daniel: You can see more drawings on Henrike’s website.
https://www.genius-l.de/

My drawings before the drawing seminars

A selection of my drawings during and after the webinars

Isometry

10. September 2021

Displaying circles and sunshades in isometry is not that difficult and with a little practice you will only need a few seconds. In this video I show you some tricks to get good results quickly.
Incidentally, the 2-day webinar “Drawing gardens three-dimensionally – Module 2: Isometry” is available on isometry
More info

Best regards and have fun trying it out,
Daniel Nies