color pencil

Chicago River Bridges at Night

Chicago Bridges at Night

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 [...]

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Office Building Lobby

Office Building Lobby

Randal did this commercial office building interior original illustration using color pencil on cold-press illustration board. He then converted the illustration to a digital “watercolor” version using Adobe Photoshop filters.

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How to Measure for a Swimsuit

Lands End Catalog Illustration

Along the same lines as the “How to Build a Better Sportshirt” illustration I did for Lands End, they also asked me to illustrate a woman’s body for a diagram on “How to Measure for a Swimsuit.”

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Renault Elf Racing Car

Renault Elf Racing Car

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 [...]

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Randal Birkey Delineator Business Card

Randal Birkey Delineator Business Card

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, [...]

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Greektown Aerial Perspective

Greektown Aerial Perspective

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 [...]

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Wheaton College Campus Aerial View

Wheaton College Campus Aerial View - © Randal Birkey

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 [...]

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Summer Cottage in Prairie School Style

Summer Cottage in Prairie School Style © Randal Birkey

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 [...]

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Parkway North Office Building Site Plan

Parkway North Center - Commercial 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.

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Architectura Prairie School House

Architectura Prairie School Residence Illustration

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. Randal did the wireframe line work in [...]

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