This is a quick character based on my neighbor who is always out very early walking their dogs and wearing some of the coolest sneakers or sports gear. They always have bright colors and a sports jersey on, too. I have a series of photos in my phone of people in my old neighborhood walking around because my family lived on such a busy street in East Oakland.
This illustration is of the Tougaloo 9 (Meredith Coleman Anding Jr., James Cleo Bradford, Alfred Lee Cook, Geraldine Edwards, Janice Jackson, Joseph Jackson Jr., Albert Earl Lassiter, Evelyn Pierce, and Ethel Sawyer) — a group of undergraduate college student activists from the HBCU Tougaloo in Jackson, Mississippi. I painted this as part of an ongoing series of illustrations highlighting hidden figures for Black History Month, called “Black Is Beautiful” using watercolor. More background here.