Dove Love Your Hair Sketching Event



Dove is a brand I've proudly used for as long as I can remember so I was excited when they asked me to live-sketch their Love Your Hair event this week. This event was kicking off their campaign to empower women to love their hair so I decided for very first time at a live-sketching event to wear my natural curls! This may not seam like a big deal but I was genuinely nervous about it and its turns out I'm not the only one who has been conditioned to feel this way about their hair. At the event there was a discussion panel of influencers and every single woman spoke about the pressure to straighten, smooth, cut or tame her hair to be "professional" or socially acceptable. After listening to the discussion, which immediately put me at ease with my choice to go naturally curly, the panels lone male influencer celebrity hairstylist Mark Townsend came right up to me to say he was eyeing my gorgeous curls throughout the whole talk and had to know how I achieved them! I know Dove is all about making a woman feel good in their own skin but this was crazy, I was on cloud nine.
Since the event was about loving your hair the team at Dove asked me for sketch concepts that truly focused on hair. I presented a few ideas and the one we agreed upon was to color and finish the hair in the illustration only. I still drew full fashion illustrations of each guests look for the day but only in pencil, then rendered the hair and only the hair in color. Another unique element to this event and these custom illustrations was that I also included the New York skyline as a background to reflect the event which was in the penthouse suite atop Nomo Soho with sweeping views of the city. To make the illustrations consistent, and in the interest of saving time, as I have to move very quickly when live-sketching parties, I printed and cut-out the skyline and made myself a stencil (shown above with the actual city skyline behind it.) Once I finished each fashion illustration I placed the stencil over it and added a contour of the skyline. The sketches came out great and both the guests and the Dove team were thrilled with them. Everyone loved not only their hair, but their hair sketches as well!  

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Sketching for Jonathan Adler x Fisher Price



Last week I had the pleasure of spending my day custom sketching for Jonathan Adler and Fisher Price at New York's Museum of Arts and Design for a press preview event debuting their exciting collaboration of high contrast, high style baby gear. Since the collection is graphic and bold they requested I paint simplified monocromatic profile portraits. It was slightly different from my typical fashion illustration sketching event but it was success and everyone seemed to truly love their custom illustrations.
It was great to spend one on one time chatting with and sketching Jonathan. I've actually been a fan of his work since he opened his very first shop down in Soho in 1998. My dad is a potter so I grew up around potters wheels, kilns, and a house full to the brim of handmade pottery. I've also been collecting Jonathan's pieces for years and have loved seeing him grow the company to include all forms of home decor, furniture, lighting, fashion accessories and now baby gear (not that I have a use for this one just yet!) 

Spending the day illustrating atop a museum I've frequented for years was also pretty incredible. If only my studio desk had views like this! And although I realize its a stretch I'm thinking now I can say that like my cousin, renowned sculptress Louise Nevelson, maybe I could say my work has been in MAD!? All kidding aside though it was a great event to live-sketch and the collection (which I can't share photo's of just yet) is stunning. One of the editors I sketched said the Jonathan Adler x Fisher Price collab is going to be true a game changer within the baby market. 

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