Featured Artist: Debbie Drechsler

My Background: I've been drawing pictures for as long as I could hold a pencil (or crayon). My earliest non-abstract images were of princesses and swans, in crayon, inside of my favorite storybooks. In an effort to Save-the-Books, my mother began telling me stories, then writing them down on sheets of typing paper folded into small books, and giving them to me to draw the pictures. In elementary school I moved on to drawing horses and in junior high I drew Twiggy over and over, possibly hoping that if I drew her enough I could become her. In high school I ordered a groovy day-glo paint set all the way from California and painted many psychedelic posters. I also began to dream of leaving upstate New York and living, someday, in San Francisco. When I went to college I thought, at first, that I'd be a printmaker. Then I thought I'd become a corporate designer. Then I dropped out and worked in a bookstore. I missed drawing, though, and began working for various newspapers. Monthlies, then a weekly and, finally, dailies! In 1986 I moved to northern California, and, after short stints at The Marin Independent Journal and The San Francisco Chronicle, began to freelance.

My Technique: Although I still do my sketches on paper, everything else happens in my computer. When I first began working digitally, I used Photoshop but I've fallen in love with Illustrator 8 and that's where I do all of my illustrations these days.

My Favorite Client story: The best assignment I ever got was to draw Tom Wolfe for Esquire. Except when Terry Koppel, the art director, called and asked me I thought he was crazy. I'd never drawn a REAL person for publication before, so, as far as I could tell, he didn't even know if I could do it. I didn't know if I could do it! I really wanted the job but was terrified I'd blow it, so I turned it down. But he started selling me on doing it, and was so convincing that I accepted. When the picture was finished not only did it look like Tom Wolfe but it turned out to be one of my best ever illustrations.

All artwork © 2002 Debbie Drechsler. Not to be used without permission.