Ten Protesters In Ten Days: Gary Bedard’s Occupy Sketches

The Occupy Wall Street protests have proven to be a captivating subject for photographers and videographers, as evidenced by the daily bulk of new images on Flickr, Vimeo, Tumblr, and YouTube. And now you can add sketch artist to the list of documentarians.

Turnstyle decided to check in with Gary Bedard, a sketch artist who picked Occupy protesters as his subjects of inspiration. Bedard, who lives in Detroit and graduated with a BFA in illustration, produced a series of Occupy Wall Street sketches by drawing one protester a day, for ten days. The idea came from a previous series he did, sketching journalists who covered the Wisconsin labor protests.

The trigger for Bedard was seeing an image of a protester with a dollar bill over his mouth. “The dollar bill speaks to ending silence on corporate greed, tax breaks for millionaires, and social injustice. When I saw it, I thought — oh my god, that means everything. It says it all,” he said.

Bedard explained his process, saying he asked his friends to pose for photographs with dollar bills taped over their mouths, and then he created the sketches from the photographs. Below each photo is a wrap-up of the Occupy Wall Street news. Bedard said that he would like to see the Occupy Wall Street movement, “End Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, put tougher regulations on predatory lending, and Republicans in congress need to pass Obama’s jobs bill.”

Bedard is a freelance illustrator for several magazines and enjoys illustrating anything that relates to LGBT issues and civil rights issues.

Photos from Gary Bedard.