6800 N. Sheridan, ornamental detail

6800 N. Sheridan, Stanleigh Hotel, Ralph C. Harris (1917)

One of my first Ultra Local Geography projects was documenting the decorative stone door surrounds in Rogers Park.  Another project was tracking down some of the neighborhood buildings that had been published in various journals.  So when I decided to get some more experience with digital colorization I thought it would be interesting to combine two old projects.

To the right is a detail from the door surround at the former Stanleigh Hotel, which I wrote about back in 2011 (Click here to read that entry.)

Anyway, I've been playing around with digital color for a couple of years as a way to emphasize my own drawings.  But once the lines are left behind even more information can be conveyed with color.  This image depended on skills I hadn't really acquired, so it was a nightmare to develop.  If I ever do a similar treatment it should go a heck of a lot faster.

Every Lot Chicago

I've been fascinated with the Every Lot Chicago Twitter feed.  This is basically just an algorithm that looks up tax ID numbers and pairs it with an image, typically from Google Streetscape.  New posts are generated about every 20 minutes. I find the randomness really interesting.   These are my monochromatic studies of a few of my favorites.   I'm using markers so as not to overthink the details.