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And now for something completely different!

Today I want to talk about architectural rendering a little bit. I have a new commission to do a rendering of a restaurant in Chicago, so thought I'd start a work in progress series of posts about it, and also yak about rendering buildings in general some.

This is the photo I will be turning into a nice illustration:



Its Table fifty-two, and is the creation of Chef Art Smith, who just happens to be Oprah's personal chef.

Rendering buildings is a highly specialized field of art. The range of styles, techniques and applications for illustrating architecture is much too much to try to write about in a blog! What I'll do is show you a little of what I do, take you through the process of rendering this piece, then give you some links to places where you can see other illustrators' work. This will take a few posts, at least, I figure!

First up are a few samples of other buildings I've done. I vary my style quite a bit, as you can see.

Ink and watercolor

Colored pencil
Ink and watercolor

Watercolor

Colored pencil and Photoshop

Sometimes the client will ask for something specific. If not, I let the building "tell me" what style and technique to use.

For Table 52, I'm thinking I might use a combination of watercolor and pencil. Its a very elegant space, and a tighter, neater style would work best to bring out the character of the building.

I start with a series of photos my art director sends me. He goes out to the location and takes pictures of the sight. I ask him to take shots of the building from different angles, some close up details, the more the better. The main photo I'll be working from is the correct angle, but I can't see the detail in the windows very well because of the tree, I can't see what's in the planter box in front, etc. etc.


So in addition to this photo I have about a half dozen others that show a lot more information.

We talked about the pictures and discussed what was important to show, and what could be removed, and in general how to make it a good illustration.

Here is my first take on the things that need to be removed from the picture:

The parking sign out front HAS to go! I always take out signs like that. Ugly!
Also, the power lines on the left, the crane on the right, and of course the truck and some of the meters and whatnot attached to the side of the building.

We talked about the green canopy tent structure in front. That's a temporary structure put up to shelter people who are waiting to get in, from the weather, which is very civilized (the structure, not the weather). It comes down once the weather warms up. But as much as I'd like to remove it, I don't know what the window and door look like underneath, and don't want to just invent something, or "fake it". Looking at the interior shot of the place on the website tells me some of what the window does, but not the door. And since I'm not there to go look in person, and my art director isn't able to go back and take more pictures, we'll have to just settle with what we have to work with. I will include the "warming hut" in the illustration and make it look as nice as possible (luckily its very tastefully done so it won't be hard!)


Now let me go work on this, and I'll post the next steps as soon as I have something to show!

All images and content herein are © Paula Pertile and may not be used or reproduced without permission.

1. We have Eric P. Kelly's Trumpeter of Krakow Newbery Medal. No, really! It's in a cute little green velvet case. I've shown it to people who were unaware that the Newbery was an actual honest-to-goodness medal medal. Well, it is, and this is what it looks like.


2. We have a bunch o' original paintings by N.C. Wyeth from an edition of Robin Hood he illustrated.


3. We have a couple cut paper scenes by Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen enjoyed cutting paper into complex little scenes which he would hand out for fun. We have two, I think.
   


4. We have a collection of letters sent to a little girl. As a child she would write to famous authors and illustrators and she saved all their responses. In her later years, these were donated to the Central Children's Room. One by L. Leslie Brooke (I still feel the Caldecott should have been named the Brooke Medal) is a lovely little creation involving unhappy balloons.


5. We have the real Mary Poppins umbrella. Author P.L. Travers donated it to the library. Yet another item Disney will never get its greedy paws on. HA!
   


6. We try to keep every single drawing done in this library by its illustrator. That means that we've a lot of great James Marshall and Jose Aruego pictures done long long ago on butcher paper.


7. We're currently about to digitize our entire collection pre-1923. Then it will be available for free online. We're also sending books off-site to a remote storage facility where they will be available only by request.


8. We've an original woodcut by Wanda Gag from her book Millions of Cats. It's quite lovely.