A sketch, Lydia Davis, and Rodarte

Long time, no blog! I do have some recent drawings to share. First, a spread from my sketchbook-portraits using brush and ink.

I've been reading The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis which has stories ranging from two sentences to 20+ pages. While reading I kept flipping to the back cover and looking at the author portrait, which features Davis with a cat in front of some ivy. After some image research, I found most of her portraits include cats. Below is my portrait of Davis.

I decided to do a portrait of the designers behind the fashion label Rodarte, sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy. I recently watched a lecture they gave at the Hammer Museum about their new book, a collaboration with photographers Alec Soth and Catherine Opie. They talked a lot about growing up in Northern California and what an influence their environment was. I included these references in my portrait: the redwoods, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (roller coaster), the Hubble Space Telescope, and the palm trees of Southern California (where they live now.) Little known fact: Kate and Laura grew up in the small town of Aptos, in Santa Cruz county-the same small town that I grew up in! I found this out after following and enjoying their work for some time.