Isabelle Schrader
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Aug 12
- 4 min read
Isabelle "Iz" Schrader is a mixed media illustrator based in Nashville. Working mostly in pen and marker, she documents overlooked scenes like gas stations, stray cats and quiet city corners with humor and care. Her drawings are built through patient crosshatching, then opened up with unexpected colors. Everyday details become small moments of wonder, whether in the ongoing series "Gas Stations" or "Cats Don’t Pay Rent." Sharing her work at local markets and art crawls, she continues to explore the beauty in what is usually passed by.
Q: What first drew you to scenes like gas stations and stray cats as recurring subjects?
A: Nothing is as enchanting to me as the beauty in the mundane, and when I find something fascinating, my irresistible instinct is to illustrate it. There is so much sacredness in the simple things, and since they are so often overlooked and neglected as subjects in art, they also hold infinite potential. When I draw gas stations and stray cats and city streets and other bleak scenes, it’s my way of saying to the world that I appreciate the grit and the grime just as much as the grandiose, if not more.
Q: You use crosshatching as both a meditative process and a structural technique. How did you come to this method, and what keeps you invested in it?
A: Whether it was in a classroom, a waiting room, or behind the counter at a part-time job, I knew I could always count on the presence of some nearby ballpoint pen to satisfy my desire to draw. That’s the one tool that every place seems to have, so naturally it became the one I got most comfortable using. I found that crosshatching was the most effective way to shade and create depth with ink, and over time, it turned into my default method to color everything with.
Ballpoint pen is still my absolute favorite medium, but the crosshatching has emerged in just about all of my illustrative work. I find the process incredibly relaxing and meditative, almost in a mind-numbing way. Something about the simple, short, repetitive motions are like a shortcut into the flow state for me.
Q: In the “Gas Stations” and “Cats Don’t Pay Rent” series, color often shows up in unexpected ways. How do you decide where and how to break the rules?
A: My philosophy with color is to put it where you think it doesn’t belong.
I know that sounds counterintuitive, but there is so much power in letting go and treating every act of creation like an experiment. For example, if I’m trying to depict a brick wall, you’ll be able to tell it’s a brick wall based on the obvious signifiers like the pattern and outline and context of the whole scene. I see that as an opportunity to take some creative liberties with the color scheme and turn what you’d expect to be red into something like purple or blue. What you’re looking at is still clearly a brick wall, but now it’s more interesting to interact with. Now that the conventionally red brick wall is allowed to be purple and blue, it isn’t off-putting if the conventionally green grass is, say, pink and yellow. The more risks you take, the more it all coalesces.
Q: There’s a sense of quiet storytelling in your work. Do you think of these drawings as narrative moments, or more like emotional snapshots?
A: You nailed it with those poetic descriptions, actually, and I think they can be equally applicable to my art! I want to capture and convey preexisting emotions through my illustrations as well as inspire new ones within the viewer. Everything is up to individual interpretation—that’s the awesome thing about art—but of course that also means I project my own personal narratives into the pieces.
Each gas station and cat who doesn’t pay rent has a real backstory, but I love that anybody can look at these scenes and draw connections to their own lives. You never know the massive ripple effect that the tiniest detail might set into motion.
Q: You’ve mentioned wanting to inspire a sense of wonder in the everyday. Has drawing these scenes changed the way you experience your own daily surroundings?
A: I think that my work is representative of how I already see and experience the world. Everything is awe-inspiring to me, and it seems impossible to not possess that outlook on life. It’s definitely made me hyper-attuned to spotting unconventional beauty and feeling immediately compelled to draw it or write about it or pay homage to it somehow. One of my daily practices is journaling, and I’ve been keeping a running list for the last couple of years called “the most beautiful thing I saw today” in which I document exactly that. The entries range from lighthearted to deep and from obvious to abstract, but a lot of them turn into the source material for my drawings.
Q: You often share your work at local art crawls and markets in Nashville. How has being rooted in your hometown shaped your practice?
A: Nashville is a great place to be in terms of art and culture and history, and “Music City” is full of inspiring opportunities as one might expect based on the nickname. I’m lucky to have incarnated in such a cool spot surrounded by other creative minds who I get to collaborate with. Right now, I’m working on an album cover for a local indie rock band which I’ve literally always listed as a part of my dream job. Sorta surreal to me!
