Illustrating my home town
I was born and raised in Santa Monica California surrounded by the relaxed beach culture. After returning from my travels in Mexico and South America I realized how unique the lifestyle was. So I started sketching and creating illustrations of my old neighborhood.
Head Shop 
California Texting 
My Blue Converse
Illustrating the diverse locals
Drawing Style
The locals are a diverse group from the skaters and hipsters to the ever-present homeless that make the beaches their home. I played around with a couple different illustration styles to depict these different personalities.
Solid color comic book style
For the skaters and hipsters I used a comic book style with a restrained color palette of red-orange, blue grays and yellow with an overlaid texture. I liked the graphic impact of the unexpected color combinations.
Venice Beach Hipsters 
California Skaters
Rough sketch book style
For the homeless and street musicians I played with a much looser sketch style. Using water color splatter backgrounds and roughly sketched line work on top to define the subject.
Homeless Man 
Venice Guitarist
The illustration tools
Technique
For the illustrations I used a combination of photographic reference, scanned in textures and the Procreate App to combine everything together. I then added additional texture and line work on top – it is very similar to the process I used on my Oaxaca Sketches.
The combination of the organic with the digital makes for a flexible and fun process since you can always undo a mistake!
Santa Monica Bluffs 
Life Guard
Always a Californian
CoNCLUSION
No matter how many countries or cities I have lived in there are things from California that I have a hard time leaving behind. Two of them are my hoodies and my Converse or Vans – I guess they just make me feel comfortable and remind me of home.
