Maze of the Week #79 - Severance Hall Maze

July 3, 2023

Maze of the Week #79 takes us back to Cleveland, Ohio one of the cities I have lived in and so a common place for my subject matter to come from. This particular maze is of Severance Hall, the home of the excellent Cleveland Orchestra. Opened in 1931 it is considered one of the most beautiful music venues in the world (see the YouTube tour below) ! If you are in the area check it out along with the Cleveland Museum of Art next door. The Wade Park District of Cleveland is a must see. You can find information about the orchestra here or more about the building here.

YouTube: Form the orchestra’s official channel !

Photo:

Severance Hall - https://grouptourmagazine.com/cleveland-orchestra/

And to get the details right I took some of my own photos of the building that you can find (hopefully!) in the maze I made. Here is a gallery of 6 of them:

Severance Hall detail photos

The Maze: This maze was started by me a few years ago (Fall 2019) and abandoned. When I first did it I tried to make it without any perspective (so the maze would be boxy and have lots of 90 degree corners) but decided I liked more realistic looking mazes and so I started making everything with perspective. That put this maze on the shelf until one day I found it and decided to finish it (and also color it). You can still see how ‘boxy’ it is. but I still think it came out pretty good ! I like the detail on the facade despite not being important to the maze.

I hope you enjoy the maze. Download is available on the homepage. Don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel !!

Coming next week:

A maze of a museum.

Maze of the Week #75 - Peter B Lewis Building Maze

June 5, 2023

Maze of the Week #75 takes us to the city of Cleveland, Ohio and the campus of Case Western Reserve University for a maze of the Peter B Lewis Building. The building houses the Weatherhead School of Management, opened in 2002 and was designed by the famous architect Frank Gehry. You can learn more about the building on the university website and also the historical page of the city.

YouTube video of the building:

Photo: Taken by my friend Heidi !!

The Maze: I went back and forth of the use or non-use of shadows with this maze many times. I found that in order to show the true unique shape of the building I needed to do the shadowing as best I could, otherwise the structure looked flat to me. I hope you like it ! Also I did the maze with a paper ratio that is longer than normal.

Peter B Lewis Building Maze — Peter B Miller Building Maze

I hope you enjoy the maze. Download is available on the homepage. Also you can watch the making of the maze on my YouTube channel !

Coming next week:

A sign maze.

Maze of the Week #65 - Bridge Guardian Maze

March 27, 2023

It’s that time of year again. Baseball season starts March 30th. Maze of the week #65 was my attempt to celebrate that fact. It is a maze of the Guardian from the bridge that overlooks Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio. Specifically it is one of the Guardians of Traffic sculptures (1932). You can read about them in Cleveland Magazine or check out this short video about the name change:

Photo: flickr, Erick Drost

Guardians of Traffic bridge statues in Cleveland, Ohio — Guardians of Traffic

The Maze: One color. Not my best maze. I made this a few years ago and never used it (until now). I post it here to show you how some of my mazes get developed over time. This is NOT the final product.

Guardian of Traffic Maze — Bridge Guardian Maze

And now to look into my improved version:

Photo: This photo from flickr, and Heather McLaughlin, will become important.

Jacobs Field Cleveland OH — flickr, Heather McLaughlin, Jacobs Field

And now what I did to improve (hopefully) the maze and make it more interesting.

1. Colors changed - The initial maze was one color. I changed the overall color to be darker and added a secondary color. I also added shadows in many places.

2. Details added - I went back and found a better photo of the truck and added additional details to it. I added some new details to the face, added fingernails, etc. You can compare the mazes and find even more !

3. Extended the maze - I made the maze longer and extended it to the bottom of the page. The actual structure is very large and the previous “floating” version of the maze was not accurate. I also added the side panels that were missing from version 1.

4. Changed the Maze - I kept this an easy kids maze. I changed the non-core maze portion at the top and deleted the lower portion of the maze.

5. Added background - I wanted to try this as mixed media. I thought about doing a blue sky but the location of this bridge overlooks the baseball stadium, so I found the photo above to make this a mixed media maze !

6. Start and goal changed - I felt that this would look better by changing the arrows to an internal lettered start and goal.

7. Letter and branding moved - I moved the branding and lettering to the top of the page. I also re-sized the title to be larger than the city name.

8. Wider cuts - There are a few places where I “cut” through the illustration to connect the parts of the maze. I slightly more than doubled these for easier solving.

And so here is the “After”. Which maze do you prefer ? Did this improve the maze ?

This maze has it’s own page where you can download it. Happy mazing !!

Coming next week:

A monument in India

Maze of the Week #46 - Free Stamp Maze

November 14, 2022

Maze of the week #46 features the world’s largest office stamp located in Willard Park in Cleveland, Ohio. It is actually a few blocks from the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame (Maze #35) and it is difficult to see one without the other. This stamp is the Free Stamp and is made of aluminum and steel that weighs 70,000 pounds.

You can read about the stamp here or check out this video:

A photo of the stamp which I took, and also the plaque out front of it:

Free Stamp in Willard Park, Cleveland, Ohio — Free Stamp Cleveland

Free Stamp in Cleveland, Ohio Information

The Maze: I did 3 versions. Black and white, a simple red and white, and a full color version. I prefer the 3rd full color version. Although this sits in a park I did not place it there, focusing only on the stamp for the maze (no ground, sky or background trees)