When COVID-19 mitigation measures first went into effect, a landslide of wedding postponements left professional photographer Alexandra Wallace with plenty of downtime. Armed with the Procreate app on her iPad Pro, Wallace decided that now might be the perfect time to try her hand at an art form she’d admired for a while but never tried for herself.
“A few years ago, I stumbled upon the concept of single-line drawings, and loved the idea,” Wallace said. “I never even took the time to give it a spin myself until the shelter-at-home orders suddenly gave me a lot of free time on my hands.”
As its name suggests, the single-line label applies to drawings completed solely from one, single stroke. Wallace first dipped her toes into the medium by drawing a handful of loved ones. She then began re-creating some of her favorite movie moments for fun (translating stills from Jurassic Park, Father of the Bride, Romeo + Juliet, American Psycho, and other gems into single-line drawings) and posting them on Instagram (@thelittlealli), asking her followers to guess which films she was paying homage to.
After some warm feedback on social media, the new hobby quickly evolved into Wallace accepting commissions (taking on assignments for $20 per portrait), with customers ranging from family and friends to complete
strangers. While the amount of time she spends varies from project to project, Wallace always finishes each portrait in a single sitting. Although her first attempt at a drawing is rarely ever its final, she admitted.
“Drawing in a single stroke is a little like a puzzle, and some of the finished portraits I’ve given people were a fifth or sixth attempt. Sometimes I’ve been able to finish one in under two minutes, but others have left me a little more stumped,” Wallace said. “I’ll do them in one sitting, but will lift the pen and start back up where I left off when my wrist starts to cramp.”
Although she ultimately appreciates the challenge, as well as the positive reception of her work so far, the task of drawing subjects she’s never met before can be a bit draining, Wallace explained.
“A lot of people have reached out, requesting me to draw their friends’ deceased family members and pets. It’s incredibly flattering that even one person would ask me, but the pressure is enormous,” she said. “I don’t know 90 percent of the people I’m drawing; I know their email address and three photos I’m looking at on my phone—to capture someone based off of those few things is a little nerve-wracking.”
Wallace has completed more than 100 portraits between the start of quarantine and now, and she’s kept busy in other artistic arenas as well, including during her recent collaboration with the May Flower Initiative, a public art project co-hosted by ARTS Obispo and the SLO Cultural Arts Committee. Wallace and several other local artists helped paint the front window displays of shops and other businesses in downtown SLO.
As a career wedding photographer, Wallace feels fortunate that some of her clients postponed rather than canceled events during the course of the pandemic, and she already has several weddings booked for 2021.
“I definitely think that both couples and venues are starting to feel more comfortable and optimistic about planning future weddings,” said the photographer, who also works as the editor of The Wedding Standard—a Central Coast-based magazine that showcases wedding industry professionals throughout California.
“For the first couple weeks of closures, I was dreading that all of my weddings would be canceled, that my income would be in the red overnight, and that the wedding industry as a whole would collapse,” Wallace continued. “Luckily, those fears were mostly fueled by spending too much time reading dramatic Facebook statuses, and all of my weddings are still on the calendar—just a little later than expected.”
Drop Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood a line at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 4-11, 2020.