Horizontal strips of Chicago

 Back in 2014 I was obsessed with creating horizontally oriented drawings of Chicago, especially industrial areas.  I wanted to see if I could use simple high-contrast drawings to record what I was seeing from the train and in the neighborhoods. Recently I revisited them and added color to a few. I still like them, but wide skinny images don't really lend themselves to the online format.  I combined them into a larger image, but it loses the panoramic feeling of what I was trying to capture.
  

Some shoebox houses in the K-Town Historic District of Chicago on the west side.  Documenting and illustrating these buildings was one way I stayed sane during quarantine.  Dates of construction range from the 1900s through the 1920s.  

I can't help but be impressed at the level of detail lavished on homes which are  comparable in size to a 2-bedroom apartment!  It was only possible due to inexpensive land and astounding levels of readily available craftsmanship, primarily from immigrants.

ADM Silos (1947-2021)

 This was developed from a sketch I did of this about 11 years ago. I intended to do a study of industrial structures, but ended up just drawing a few and not really going in-depth on the history and technology of what I was seeing.  Anyway, these have recently been demolished for redevelopment, along with a pretty nice attached loft building.  I definitely never imagined the real estate boom in Fulton Market.  My strongest memory of the area was the smell of bleach used to wash down the sidewalks in front of the meat packers every morning.