CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Every morning, Lauren Barger wakes up, pours herself a cup of coffee, and scrolls through Instagram looking for someone new to draw.
Barger, the artist at lb.fine.art, began a fun little Instagram and TikTok series called "coffee draws." The premise is simple, all you have to do is like and comment on her post for a chance to be featured.
The Charlotte artist said she found inspiration from a previous TikTok trend and once she had the time to do so, decided to do something similar.
Barger is actually known around the Charlotte area as the "butt lady." She goes to local pop-ups around the Charlotte area selling butt animal prints. Once she closed down her custom commissions, she said she had time for her coffee draws series.
"So now that I had taken off time to work on the business and not doing, you know, custom commission, I decided to attempt it," Barger said. "But I only had time in the morning while I was drinking my coffee with my daughter. "
And so with a coffee in one hand and her apple pencil in the other, Barger began drawing. At the start of the series, Barger said the hardest part was not the drawing itself, but the social media aspect of it. It took her a while to just film one video.
"And I remember in the beginning, those would take longer than the actual drawing part of the copy draw series," Barger said. "And nowadays, I can whip one out in no time."
Barger's fun and quirky videos are clearly working because the Charlotte artist has racked up quite a following.
"I have about I have 16,000 followers on Instagram or on TikTok and now about 8,600 on Instagram, which is more than I had three months ago," Barger said.
Back in May, Barger decided to choose a theme to go along with her morning coffee drawings. She chose mermaids for May.
"And when June was coming up, I had already done 100 coffee draws in a row so I was like, I need a new theme for June," Barger said.
So for Pride Month, Banger chose to focus on the LGBTQ community.
" And so really the theme is "love is love" with a focus on the LGBT community. But it's all different types of love," Barger explained.
One of the couples featured in Barger's drawings was Marissa Barrett and her wife Delaney Barrett.
The two originally found Barger at an art pop-up years ago.
"We were walking by and we saw the cutest art of animal butts. And we were just instantly drawn in," Marissa Barrett said.
Marissa Barrett said they bought a few of her pieces, followed her on Instagram and then the rest was history.
Marissa Barrett said she didn't think they would get selected for a drawing, but said they were ecstatic when they were.
"My jaw just dropped and I was so excited," Marissa Barrett said. "I mean, there's this artist that we've been following for years, and she picked us."
Marissa Barrett said she's glad Barger chose Pride Month as her theme for her June coffee draws.
"With everything that's that we've seen going on in the news, just this month, I think it's more important than ever, to kind of bring a positive shed some positive light on the community and the culture," Marissa Barrett said.
Barger also agrees with that sentiment and said as an ally of the community, it's important for her to su[port them in any way she can.
"I think it's a really important issue," Barger said. And to find joy in it, we need to celebrate it. And so I was really excited to do this."
Contact Meilin at mtompkins@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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