Drawing Cincinnati: Courttney's Vision

With nothing more than a ballpoint pen and paper, Visionaries and Voices artist Courttney Cooper creates large and highly detailed aerial 3-D drawings of the city that would impress even the most skilled cartographer. Starting with roads, and eventually moving on to individual buildings, Cooper relies on his memory and intimate knowledge of the city to capture neighborhoods and landmarks, past and present, in his art.

Cooper has been part of Visionaries and Voices since the organization’s inception in 2004 and he visits the Northside studio four days a week when he’s not working his full-time job at Kroger.

Sam Pennybacker is an e-media student at the University of Cincinnati and on the staff of the journalism program’s New Media Bureau.