Tag Archives: color pencil

Chicago River Bridges at Night

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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

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.

Renault Elf Racing Car

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As a part of developing a technical illustration business in the 1980′s, Randal Birkey did many illustrations as “self-promotion.” These projects were designed to push skills and abilities further, and to show prospective customers what could be done.

This pen and ink line art illustration of a Renault Elf Formula One racing car was carefully constructed by the illustrator using a scale model as a reference. The right front and rear tires were shown transparently to reveal the brake systems. The top body panel was rendered transparent to reveal the driver cockpit area. The top rear body panels were also shown transparently to reveal engine intake and exhaust components.

Randal went on to finish this illustration in color and it was used on a number of his self-promotion ads during the 1980′s and early 1990′s.

Renault Elf Racing Car - line art

Renault Elf Racing Car - line art

Renault Elf Racing Car - Color

Renault Elf Racing Car - Color

Randal Birkey Delineator Business Card

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This was my first 4 color business card, created back in the 1980′s, when I relocated by studio from my home in Oak Park, to a studio space in Chicago, on North Wells Street, just south of Chicago Avenue. This illustration was done on yellow tracing paper, using sepia ink in a Rapid-o-graph ink pen, then adding color using color pencils. The image is based upon a Frank Lloyd Wright house drawing, designed for Thomas P. Hardy in Racine, Wisconsin. For a business card, the line work needed to be greatly simplified.

I then selected a period style font and hand outlined the contact information for the card.

FYI, a Delineator is: one who draws or traces the outline of or sketches out in order to represent pictorially or to depict.

Randal Birkey Delineator - Business Card

Randal Birkey Delineator - Business Card


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Greektown Aerial Perspective

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I love Greek food, culture, architecture and language! Why? Perhaps because I spent a summer there in 1980 doing a short-term mission project for Greater Europe Mission. I made some great friendships, some of which have lasted to this day. I’d love to go back for a visit with my wife someday!

During the 1980’s when I was doing a lot of freelance architectural rendering and illustration work, I was asked to do a rendering of a proposed redesign of an entire city block in the Greektown area of Chicago. Working from the architect’s sketches and ideas, I created this aerial perspective for presentation purposes.

The idea here was to recreate the “Greek village” aesthetic that one sees often when traveling in Greece. There are usually hillsides, mountains and/or beaches involved, with the village stepped up in layers behind. That was the idea behind this design. I think it worked pretty well, even though it was never built. The site is along the East side of Halsted Street, with the Kennedy Expressway behind it.

Greektown Aerial Perspective - Chicago

Greektown Aerial Perspective - Chicago

This illustration was done for Roula Architects, Chicago, Illinois.

Wheaton College Campus Aerial View

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Randal did his first map for Wheaton College through Rich Nickel Design in the early 1980′s. Also contributing to the project as a writer was Amy Wolgemuth. This original art was done by hand at 20 x 30 inches in size on hot press illustration board. The line art was done with very thin Rapidograph ink pens using sepia ink. The shading and toning was added with color pencil. The aerial perspective was then drum scanned and printed in 4 color offset process in an interior spread for the Wheaton College Viewbook.

Wheaton College Campus - Aerial Perspective View

Wheaton College Campus - Aerial Perspective View

For this familiar with the campus, on the middle left side is Edmund Chapel (with the steeple), and on the right foreground is the large Billy Graham Center. Notice the whimsical “Spirit of St. Louis” airplane in the upper foreground to give the view some sense of depth and perspective. This was a really fun project – and the viewbook won some design and writing awards!

Summer Cottage in Prairie School Style

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Summer Cottage - design by Frank Lloyd Wright

Summer Cottage - a design by Frank Lloyd Wright

Randal Birkey has created architectural illustrations of many Frank Lloyd Wright architectural designs for his personal portfolio of architectural illustration work. This rendering is based upon a summer cottage design and sketch of Wright’s. The medium Randal used is color pencil on 20″ x 30″ medium gray illustration board. It is interesting to work in both directions from neutral gray, adding light colors and dark colors from the middle of the value range.

Parkway North Office Building Site Plan

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Parkway North Office Building Site Plan

Parkway North Office Building Site Plan

Randal Birkey was commissioned by Chicago commercial real estate development firm LaSalle Partners to prepare a site plan of a new development in the northern suburbs of Chicago. This color study was done on neutral gray illustration board using color pencils.

Architectura Prairie School House

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This custom house was designed by an architecture firm called Architectura, located in suburban Chicago, in the Prairie School style of Frank Lloyd Wright. Randal was asked to render the home for the architect to better enable his client to visualize how the design would look when completed.

Final Custom Prairie School House Rendering

Final Custom Prairie School House Rendering

Randal did the wireframe line work in a 3D software and then transferred it to 2D drawing programs and printed the linework on various types of sketch and drawing paper. He first did a series of quick color studies like the one shown below, to work out the final values and color palette. Sometimes the early sketches and studies have a unique quality of their own.

A Color Study of the Cusrom Prairie School House design

A Color Study of the Custom Prairie School House Design