Women Who Draw continues to be one of my favorite things on the internet. It’s an open directory for female (and female-identifying) illustrators, and it increases the visibility of women working in illustration, arts, and cartooning—with emphasis placed illustrators of color, LBTQ+, and other minority groups.
That’s a long-winded way of introducing their new collaborative project that recently appeared on Topic. Called One Sky, co-founders Wendy MacNaughton and Julia Rothman gave 88 artists one simple instruction: look up at August 13, 2017 at exactly 12:00PM Eastern Standard Time. The selected artists then drew and painted what they saw.
The chosen artists are located around the world, from Tel Aviv to Brooklyn to Buenos Aires. As a result, some painted skies are a picturesque cerulean blue while others are stone gray. Many artists saw daytime fluffy clouds (and even beach bodies), while others couldn’t see the sun at all. So although this is the same subject, one thing is clear: no two views were the same. But despite the distance between them, this one brilliant portrait of the shared sky. At a time when the world seems so dark, we can look to it for moments of clarity like the artworks pictured here.
See the entire project on Topic.
Above [GMT‑5]: 1 Andrea D’Aquino, New York, NY 2 Aya Kakeda, Brooklyn, NY 3 Catia Chien, Brooklyn, NY 4 Gina Triplett, Philadelphia, PA 5 Hayley Powers Thornton-Kennedy, Catskill Mountains, NY 6 Julia Rothman, Vail’s Gate, NY 7 Leah Goren, Rockaway Beach, NY 8 Lisa Brown, Cape Cod, MA 9 Loveis Wise, West Philadelphia, PA 10 Martha Rich, Philadelphia, PA 11 Melinda Beck, Brooklyn, NY 12 Miriam Martincic, Sugar Mountain, NC 13 Penelope Dullaghan, Indianapolis, IN 14 Rachael Cole, Brooklyn, NY 15 Rebecca Clarke, Long Island City, NY 16 Rosalyn Yoon, Pittsburgh, PA 17 Rumi Hara, Brooklyn, NY 18 Samantha Hahn, Brooklyn, NY 19 Sarah Neuburger, Pinehurst, GA 20 Sarah Williamson, Brooklyn, NY
21 Vikki Chu, Brooklyn, NY 22 Virginie Egger, Montréal, Canada [GMT‑6] 23 Alison McDole, Stoughton, WI 24 Drue Wagner, Austin, TX 25 Jenny Volvovski, Chicago, IL 26 Kathiuska (Catalina Vásquez), Medellín, Colombia 27 Katie Turner, Nashville, TN 28 Lauren Nassef, Chicago, IL 29 Meera Lee Patel, Deerfield, IL 30 Renata Galindo, Mexico City, Mexico 31 Shelby Rodeffer, Chicago, IL • [GMT‑7] 32 Carson Ellis, Missoula, MT 33Chelsea O’Byrne, Vancouver, Canada 34 Eliane Mancera, Tijuana Beach, Mexico [GMT‑8] 35 Alexandra Bowman, Oakland, CA 36 Amy Hevron, Seattle, WA 37 Diana Toledano, San Francisco, CA 38 Esther Pearl Watson, Joshua Tree, CA 39 Fin Lee, Temple City, CA 40 JGV, East Los Angeles, CA
73 Jianan Liu, Beijing, China 74 Kori Song, Peng Chau, Hong Kong • [GMT+9] 75 petite maya.t, Seoul, Korea 76 Yura Osborn, Hayama, Japan • [GMT+10] 77 Helena Leslie, Garran, Australia 78 Jessica Meyrick, Sydney, Australia 79 Sophie Beer, Brisbane, Australia • [GMT+11] 80 Rachel Chew, Melbourne, Australia