Julia Rothman - Ladies Drawing Night: Make Art, Get Inspired, Join the Party

Ping Zhu

Leah Goren

Text copyright 2016 by Julia Rothman, Leah Goren, and Rachael Cole.

Photographs copyright 2016 by Kate Edwards.
All art copyright the individual artists.
constitutes a continuation of the copyright page.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 9781452147253 (epub, mobi)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Rothman, Julia, author. | Goren, Leah, author. | Cole, Rachael, author.
Title: Ladies drawing night / By Julia Rothman, Leah Goren, and Rachael Cole.
Description: San Francisco : Chronicle Books, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015037470 | ISBN 9781452147000 (pb)
Subjects: LCSH: DrawingStudy and teaching. | WomenSocieties and clubs.
Classification: LCC NC593 .R68 2016 | DDC 741.07dc 3 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015037470

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Rachael, Julia, and Leah

Ladies Drawing Night is not the most imaginative title, nor do the words capture the amount of incredible inspiration and creativity we have felt at these weekly gatherings. Yet, this is what stuck when the three of usJulia Rothman, Leah Goren, and Rachael Colefirst started getting together four years ago to draw.

There is nearly a decade in age between each of us. Rachael is a mother and seasoned childrens book art director. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts MFA illustration program. She is the author of an upcoming picture book inspired by her evening moon-hunting walks with her son, and she works on personal illustration projects whenever she can. Julia, a Rhode Island School of Design graduate, has done illustration for a variety of editorial clients as well as patterns for dishware, wallpaper, and stationery companies. She authors and illustrates her own books and organizes collaborative book projects. Leah, the youngest among us, works continually on freelance illustration projects and also designs her own clothing, accessories, and ceramics, which she sells from her web shop. Despite our age differences, our interests aligned.

Julia met Leah when she came as a guest speaker to one of Leahs illustration classes at Parsons School of Design. Rachael and Julia connected at an illustration conference. When Julia had the idea for a collaborative scarf project, she brought the three of us together. Our scarf series was a success, and we vowed to continue with collaborative projects as a group. But most of all we really enjoyed the initial drawing process and each others company. We decided to continue to meet at Rachaels house in Brooklyn, thinking we would eventually embark on something again. Instead we relished in just drawing together and continued to do so without any next planand Ladies Drawing Night was born.

Meeting in the evening with brushes, paint, and paper is a break from client work. All day we design, illustrate, and draw to pay the rent. These evenings together are our free time, where we can make whatever we want without an editor or art director giving direction and feedback. We use these nights to experiment with different media: thicker brushes, nib pens, collage. We draw whatever we want: animals, fashion models, trains. It is relaxing and puts the fun back into an activity that has become a job. Plus, we talk. We discuss workboth our opportunities and our challengesand what is happening in our personal lives. We became close. We support each other through stressful situations and often get up out of our seats to give a hug to someone having a bad day. Other times, we are so engrossed in drawing that we can go for periods working in complete silence. The evenings are a kind of group therapy. We supply ourselves with plenty of wine and chocolate-based snacks to keep us going. Sometimes we invite other friends to join in.

Our male friends often complain. Why is this only for ladies? Thats gender-biased! Its true, it is. Its not that we feel that our guy friends wouldnt get it, it just feels right with all women. It is one less divide among us, a source of common ground. Once in a while one of our boyfriends joins in, or Mars, Rachaels husband, tries painting, but ladies only is a general rule we keep (even when guys jokingly offer to wear wigs or dresses). For us, there is limited time with just women. We really enjoy it, so we stick to it.

Sometimes we hate the drawings that we make. Other times the art that amasses from the evening is impressive. We always pick our favorites and post them online to share. We hashtag the evening with #ladiesdrawingnight to collect all of our images from these nights. There has been a lot of positive response, not only to the artwork itself, but also to the idea of organized drawing sessions and shared creativity among women. Strangers started tagging their friends and commenting we should do this or I wish I could come. We realized that this ritual was something that really resonated with people of all ages, amateur artists to professionals. Thats why we decided to adapt it into a book: to share the custom.

This book is an archive of ten Ladies Drawing Nights. We decided to provide a prompt that would loosely theme the evenings, and we invited talented guests who seemed experienced in the topic. This way we could learn something from thema technique, a quick tipor just hear about their experience working in the field of art and illustration. Many of these women are well-known, award-winning illustrators, while others are just starting to advance in their careers. Being in New York City, and especially in Brooklyn, has afforded us the opportunity to meet so many other creatives. There is a strong community buzzing with relentless energy. Everyone seems eager to connect, collaborate, or just hang out with like-minded folks. We feel so fortunate to be able to have these artists join us at the table and impart their knowledge. Often it felt intimidating to approach people we admired, and then to sit and draw beside them was even scarier. Every Ladies Drawing Night, we would grapple with these insecurities at first, but eventually wed rid ourselves of them over the course of the evening.