Sketch09

This is a drawing from my sketchbook that I sent off to The Sketchbook Project. I started off playing with a visual theme but after several pages it didn’t feel like me. This was the first sketch I did of my usual kind of work – women.

I think my current body of work started sometime around 1998 or 1999. I was in college pursing my art degree but hadn’t taken any art classes or done any kind of art for a couple of years. Once I started taking advanced art classes, we often had freedom to choose the subject matter for our assignments. Painting and drawing women is what came naturally to me, and that’s what I’ve done ever since.

I realize I might be more recognized for my photography these days but the artwork came first. However, there’s an intermingling of the two because they share a visual language. As a teenager I looked at magazines like Playboy and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and that kind of glamourous presentation influenced my work. So, the way I create my girls on canvas or on paper and capture women on camera have the same kind of approach.