To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the film 13 Going On 30, I decided to make a piece featuring the iconic multicolored dress Jennifer Garner wears in the “Thriller” dance scene. The central image is surrounded by a quote from her character Jenna Rink, in which she asks her tweenage neighbor Becky:

“Can you tell I’m wearing underwear? ‘Cause I totally am.”

Multiple reference images were originally printed out for this piece. I tried to do a full-body sketch of the character dancing, but it appeared to be too busy in my mockups. The dress is so bright, colorful, and recognizable (if you know the movie) that it could clearly stand alone as the main focal point.

After dozens of sketches, I settled on one I liked and recreated it on vellum paper. The drawing was carefully cut out with an X-Acto knife, then pasted into the center of a sheet of 9 x 12 watercolor paper. Once dry, I measured out a one inch border from each of the edges and lightly penciled in a thin white border around the drawing.

With the borders in place, I rotated the paper and filled the space with a Sakura Micron Pigma 005 pen. I chose a relatively uniform style of lettering, so the background appeared consistently gray from afar. The pencil lines were erased, then the piece was scanned and edited for digital purposes.

Is this piece available?

“Becky, Can I Ask You Something?” is available for $125 through Gestalt Projects. The piece is part of their phenomenal online exhibition “What to Wear”.