Lauren Rodriguez is a unique artist working out of Los Angeles, California in the United States. With her Behance portfolio, Rodriguez reveals her unique process of creating and experimenting with art through her sketchbook. Acting as both an exploration of her skills as an artist and a journal, Lauren Rodriguez fights a tendency to get bored with drawing the same things over and over by reflecting on and documenting her own real-world interactions/experiences in her sketchbook. The look inside that she provides with her scans are a compelling view into what makes Rodriguez an exciting artist to watch.
When you look at her sketchbook, it becomes immediately clear that Rodriguez is a fan of anime and master of the anime style. She uses this aesthetic to do her artistic journaling in full scenes that would look right at home in a book of manga. I love her entry from January 6th where she reflects on her time trying new recipes. We see a fully prepared chickpea cutlet (which received an A-plus from the artist as a meal) while a girl on the top of the page leans her head into a phone screen. Rodriguez provides a smaller scene projecting from the screen showing a game character fishing, a depiction of Rodriguez’s obsession with Stardew Valley at the time. Another entry, from July 31st, documents another great meal, coconut fried rice with edamame, frying up in a pan at the top of the page next to a list of ingredients in the dish. Underneath it is a hilarious looking cat figure in an orange ruffled shirt and party hat next to a caption saying that Rodriguez went back to the store just to buy it for an early Halloween decoration. It’s good cheeky fun, giving you wonderful insight into Rodriguez as a person while showing off her flair with inks and paint. I for one would love to see these books released as a whole, I can only imagine the fun one would have flipping through her sketchbook endlessly, learning the story of her year.