Randal Birkey created this watercolor illustration of a Chicago industrial style warehouse building being converted to residential lofts by a Chicago area real estate developer back in the 1980′s. Randal created the 20″ x 30″ ink line and watercolor art for the building and project architects, CAPA, also a Chicago firm.
Chicago Loft Conversion
Another illustration done for the “Friends of the Chicago River” project. Randal illustrated what could be done at the southern end of Rush Street in Chicago, where it dead ends into the Chicago River. This view showed an outdoor eating area, a dancing area on a barge, plantings, walkways and other amenities to make creative use of this under-utilized property.
Rush Street at the Chicago River
Randal was commissioned by a real estate development firm to develop this architectural rendering of a residential design being offered in a development in Chicago’s near South Loop area. This was to be new construction offered in the Prairie School style, popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright. Randal first worked from architectural drawings to develop a 3D perspective wireframe. Once a view was established and approved by the client, Randal transferred the line work to watercolor illustration board, then rendered the house in watercolor and ink line work. The original was done on D’Arches 22 x 32 watercolor illustration board.
Prairie Style House
Randal did this white ink and pencil illustration of Chicago bridges at night for a project funded by the Open Lands nature conservancy project. The illustration was used in a report designed to highlight how the Chicago River could be developed and turned into an amenity for Chicago, rather than the eyesore that it was back the 1980′s.
Interestingly, The City of Chicago has since implemented many of the recommendations and ideas put forth in the Open Lands report.
Chicago Bridges at Night
This illustration and a number of others in this series were commissioned by and in collaboration with Jonathan Boyer, a Chicago area architect.
I recently had a meeting at my office with food catered in by Maggiano’s… an Italian Restaurant in the Chicago area. It reminded me that I did some illustration work for the parent company, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises (LEYE), back in the 1990′s. Here is one such grayscale line and wash illustration done digitally in Painter software, using an Apple Mac and Wacom tablet.
Maggiano's Restaurant - Street View Scene
Randal Birkey was asked to create a series of illustrations for a corporate communication piece called “This is Amsted.” The illustrations depicted the main activities of each division of a large manufacturing company located in Chicago, named Amsted Industries. At the time, the divisions were named:
Randal created a world-globe for use on the cover. He illustrated two men working on an underground pipe for Griffin Pipe. A large factory with air coolers next to it was used for BAC. A close-up of a railroad car “truck” was used for ASF and Griffin Wheel. Later a close -up of a drive chain used in a road grader was added for Diamond Chain. These were pre-digital illustrations in Randal’s career, done in pen and ink, and color pencil.
Quincy Area - Chicago Map
Demi & Cooper Advertising
Elgin, Illinois
A real estate developer required a large Chicago area street map for a display wall in their downtown Chicago sales office. Their advertising agency contacted Randal Birkey requiring a Chicago street base map with approximately 300 specific locations to be added.
Randal Birkey modified an existing Adobe Illustrator Chicago street map, adding the 300 locations with color markers and text labels. The map file was delivered via web download, in a layered Adobe Photoshop format within a very short time frame.
The file was to be output on professional digital printing equipment in long roll sections, and used as “wallpaper” in the 565 West Quincy project sales office.
Contact RANDAL BIRKEY.COM for all your customized Chicago area street map needs.
55 E. Wacker Drive Building Illustration
The office of the building at 55 West Wacker Dr. in Chicago, Illinois required an illustration of their building for use on printed note cards in order to extend the branding and image of their building property.
Randal Birkey created a line and watercolor rendition of the building as viewed from the Chicago River. The artwork was supplied to the designer as a deigital file and placed into industry standard digital design layout software. The final digital files were sent to a commercial printer, output to film and converted to CMYK printing plates. The note cards were run on a 4-color printing press, and delivered to the 55 W. Wacker Drive Office of the Building.
The world renowned Underwriter Laboratories (UL) of product safety testing and standards fame, contracted Randal Birkey to create an illustration out of an old historical print depicting a scene from the Chicago Fire. It was to be reproduced in a company publication having to do with fire safety.
In this unusual project, Randal Birkey was provided a faded copy of a historic illustration that was unusable for reproduction. He was asked to enhance it and turn it into a new and reproducible illustration. The image depicts a fire fighting team at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
Randal scanned a copy of the original damaged print, then used Fractal Painter software on a Macintosh computer with a Wacom tablet, to “retouch” adding color, texture and contrast to the image.
Randal Birkey was contracted by an architect to prepare a rendering of a proposed entrance structure design near a Chicago “Deep Tunnel Project” location. Randal went on site and took reference photos. He then inserted the architect’s entrance design–based upon scale design drawings–into the scene and rendered it in a line and watercolor style.
Deep Tunnel Project Entrance Design