BPB Projects

Roosevelt and 69th Street, Queens: Header Picture Project Featuring Kelly Lasserre

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It’s anoth­er month, which means that Brown Paper Bag has a shiny new head­er. Illus­tra­tor and let­ter­er Kel­ly Lasserre has lent her fine pic­to­r­i­al skills and depict­ed a block of busi­ness in her neigh­bor­hood in Queens, New York. I love all of her hand let­ter­ing and tiny details on the signs and build­ings. Makes me want to take a walk down this street!

As always, the work is for sale in the Brown Paper Bag shop as a 4″ x 6″ print — per­fect for fram­ing! Grab one before they’re all gone.

Here’s the scoop on Kel­ly, who I’ve had the plea­sure of know­ing since our under­grad­u­ate illus­tra­tion days:

Name: kel­ly lasserre
Loca­tion: queens, new york
Web­site: kellylasserre.com / kellylasserre.tumblr.com
What was your dream job when you were 7 years old? a pro­fes­sion­al female rock climber
Your pro­fes­sion now: a semi pro­fes­sion­al illus­tra­tor and mak­er of things
What’s your favorite thing to draw? objects of sen­ti­men­tal val­ue and sub­jects oth­er­wise over­looked in our dai­ly lives. and food.
What was the inspi­ra­tion for this piece? 
my neigh­bor­hood is real­ly inter­est­ing and i love it, it is extreme­ly eth­ni­cal­ly diverse and pre­dom­i­nate­ly filled with small busi­ness­es like this. i’ve always want­ed to paint the places i walk by every day, to record their unique facades in an image.
How did you cre­ate your illus­tra­tion? Was it any dif­fer­ent than your reg­u­lar process?
it was only dif­fer­ent in that i very rarely work from pho­tographs but i did here. the rest of the process was how i typ­i­cal­ly work. i sim­pli­fied the details, like the writ­ing on the papers in the win­dows. and omit­ted any back­ground or side­walk, because that’s not meant to be a focus. then i just worked in lay­ers of col­ors- i use hol­bein acry­la gouache and tiny brushes.
Have you ever tried the Fies­ta Grill? If so, how is it? yes sev­er­al times! you can get a com­bo with rice and one side for $3.95 or two sides for $6.95. you just point to what you want and they have a ton of options. great for quick tasty fil­ipino food and all the folks work­ing there are real­ly kind.