Drawing an audience
Next-door Muskego neighbors and illustration artists take to TikTok to share their work.
When he was 12, Jonah Gibson drew an apple in chalk in Melanie Davis’ driveway.
Jonah loved to draw. So did Melanie, but the two didn’t speak for the next several years, even though they lived right next door to each other in Muskego.
Then, when Gibson was a senior at Muskego High and Davis a junior, they were assigned to work together on a yearbook cover. That summer, they repeated the partnership, spending almost every day for months in the school’s art room, working on a mural that still hangs in the cafeteria.
In 2018, Gibson went off to the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, and Davis followed the year after. When they come home on breaks from school, they draw together.
Now, they’re drawing together for an audience. After a spring spent taking classes online, Davis and Gibson, both 19, downloaded TikTok because they’d seen other artists share their work on the app. Since June, the two have run a joint account where they showcase their art: portraits of fictional characters, TikTok stars, celebrities and even Milwaukee athletes Christian Yelich and Giannis Antetokounmpo, whom they drew in chalk outside the Fiserv Forum. They call themselves @nextdoorartists.
Their third video was the one that took off. Davis posted a video of herself sketching reigning queen of TikTok Charli D’Amelio, the 16-year-old dancer who has amassed over 77 million followers and a dedicated fan base on the platform.
“My drawings never look like the person at first haha,” Davis wrote in text over the video, which shows her portrait develop as a work in progress. The end result is uncanny, though, down to Charli’s freckles and the way her smile sneaks up to one side. The video garnered more than 480,000 views and more than 100,000 likes.
The two say that the account, which has now gained about 9,600 followers and more than 217,000 total likes, is good practice.
Gibson and Davis are both illustration majors at SCAD. Gibson concentrates on concept art, learning to design for animation or video games; Davis will likely focus on drawing for publication design. But they both love to draw people.
Gibson said that when students first enter art school, “A lot of what you’re doing is observational artwork. And that’s kind of a lot of what we’re doing with portraiture.”
Davis said there’s less pressure for art to be perfect on TikTok than on other forms of social media, and there’s room for experimentation. “You can have a little bit more fun on TikTok,” she said.
The portraits — some in chalk, some sketched — that the two have posted on TikTok were ones they drew originally for the app, some even suggested by viewers. They’ve tried their hands at Lizzo, Bob Ross, characters from Avatar the Last Airbender and TikTok sensation Ana Octo, who went mega-viral this spring for rollerskating to Jennifer Lopez’s 2002 single Jenny from the Block, among others.
By request, they’ve posted a few flash tutorials, with under 60 seconds to show how they approach faces or hair (“Start by filling in the hair with a base color slightly lighter than the hair color you want”), or how they blend colored pencils and markers. Sometimes they field questions from younger artists who are interested in going to art school themselves.
With the school year approaching — and at least starting from home — Davis and Gibson are thinking about using the app to showcase some of their coursework, which they’ll be completing at home in Muskego without the studio lighting and scanners they have access to at SCAD. They’re also considering ways they could organize commissions through the app. Both take individual commissions through their Instagram accounts, but haven’t yet arranged for the same on TikTok.
One day, Davis would like to draw for a company or freelance. She’s already illustrated a children’s book, “Dotz Goes to Camp” by Jason Bretzmann, which came out this year. Gibson would love to work on concept art for a game studio or animation company.
“Illustration is basically creating something new that you wouldn’t be able to do with a photograph,” he said. “You take all of that realism and you put it towards your work in your own individual style. You’re kind of trying to find your voice.”