I teach budding designers about the beautiful world of garden design and landscape graphics in a fun and simple way.
I’m Lisa Nunamaker, a garden design educator, writer, illustrator and speaker. After ten years of practicing as a landscape architect I realized that even though I adored designing, I loved inspiring others to design even more.

 

That's when PAPER GARDEN WORKSHOP was born. The word PAPER evolved from the idea of how we design and plan our gardens on paper first (even when I create digital drawings, I always begin with paper for initial concepts). The word WORKSHOP connects to the idea of practicing the concepts of design and graphics. The words together, PAPER GARDEN WORKSHOP creates a spirited place to learn garden design.

 

Learn more!

Learn how to draw your garden dreams.

Next course offered January 2025.

Please contact me at [email protected] with questions.

Learn the exciting details here

You might have seen me here...

Would you like to learn more about garden design? 

Have you already taken a design course and read lots of books, but want to dive deeper? Try out my membership that builds on the garden design foundation you've already started. 

FALL ENROLLMENT IS CURRENTLY CLOSED

We'll open again March 2025

Join our waiting list

Peanut Butter + Jelly Garden

A super fun ebook to help guide your unique garden vision.

I can't wait to start planning!

Garden Doodle Sheets

A engaging workbook with pre-designed garden outlines ready for you to fill in the fun details. 

I'm excited to start drawing!
It's sort of like a studio library, but way more fun.

A garden design blog with lots of goodness.

I love exploring engaging ways to teach garden design and landscape graphics. My blog has a plethora of posts that covers the umbrella view of the design process all the way to the details of drawing plants on a piece of paper, plus everything in-between.

Let's head over!

Bubble Diagrams

This is wonderful way to organize your spaces without a lot of detail and drawing investment. The purpose of a functional diagram is to study the relationship of spaces and the movement or visual connections between them.  

Garden Structure

This can be the most challenging, yet the most fun part of developing your spatial design. Once you create a bubble diagram to organize your outdoor spaces, the next step is defining the structure of those spaces.

Preliminary Design

The preliminary design builds on the garden structure study by adding the location of plant and hardscape materials, though plants are not yet identified. The goal of this step is to create an engaging plan in which someone can start to imagine themself in it.

Line Weights for Landscape Plans

Proper line weights give your drawing depth and clarity.  Few line weights will make your drawing feel flat, while a variety, used in the right way, will assist in communicating your design as a three-dimensional space.

Drawing Plant Symbols Practice Sheet

Step-by-step process of drawing  plant symbols, a practice sheet, plus a collection of different types of deciduous and evergreen symbols that someone could use on a landscape plan. 

Elevation to Plan

One of the best ways to design is to draw your ideas in elevation, especially when making a composition of plants. This allows you to visualize the plant forms in a holistic composition.

Everyone was so thrilled with your presentations. Learning and laughing at the same time is great! I enjoyed every minute of your visit.

-Susan, Eau Claire, Wisconsin

I'd love to visit with your group

I enjoy sharing tips on garden design and landscape graphics. My goal for each presentation is for the audience to have fun, while also learning something new. Really, I want audience members to walk away with an ah-ha moment.

Please tell me more!

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Would you like to learn some great tips on garden design + landscape graphics?

Subscribe to my free newsletter: THE PENCIL CASE. Trust me, it will be lots of fun. I'll even let you take a peek at past issues here.

Let's do this!