Awash with tenderness, Monica Garwood’s illustrations exude a feminine—and feminist—strength. Watercolor and ink combine to create irony and playful details, such as the spots of a Dalmation matching its master’s dress. The San Francisco–based illustrator first fell in love with drawing through Albrecht Dürer’s life studies, and she began her practice with strict, realistic renderings. Then she discovered mid-century modern artists, such as Mary Blair and Miroslav Šašek, and her craft became looser and experimental. She seeks to balance the “refined and chaotic,” she says. “I love art that is very simplistic and not gratuitous with detail, like Matisse’s paper collages.”

After graduating in 2013 with a BFA in illustration, her career took a bolder direction through a solo show titled Girls You Can’t Have. In the artworks, women of all stripes taunt the viewer with their self-possession. Since then, work for feminist magazines BUST and Bitch—as well as illustrations, hand lettering and type design for Old Navy—have established her path. Her secret? “My ability to simplify extraneous detail while still nailing the very subtle, unique characteristics of an individual, emotion or mood.”