Sex Work During a Pandemic

This was one of six illustrations commissioned by Autostraddle (a queer online magazine) for for their 'How to Survive A Post(?)-COVID World' series. This illustration accompanies a piece called “Chicago’s Black S*x Workers Hold Each Other Up” by Rebelle of @heauxhistory, which you can find here.

Inspiration

The illustration shows a sex worker drawing a line with chalk to separate buildings in a cityscape. The chalk like is intended to represent the various kinds of boundaries that Rebelle talks about in their piece, and how it’s a central part of being a sex worker to navigate different types of boundaries - the geographical boundaries of a city, boundaries around personal safety, articulations of their rights, and boundaries around correct pay and fair treatment from clients

Method

The ripple textures on the buildings and the ground were created using scans of black ink on paper. The rest of the image was rendered digitally using Procreate and Photoshop.

Turnaround Time

Rough: within same day of receiving article text (3 hours)

Final: 8 hours