Sunday, July 26, 2009

I can draw like a fashion designer now.

My instructor, Thalia Stratton, is really good fashion illustrator and has impacted my drawing greatly. She's a freelance artist who did work for Givenchy, Playboy Magazine, Neiman Marcus, San Francisco Ballet, San Jose Mercury News, etc. I'd say my drawings used to be very technical and quite bland to say the least, but now it's getting there. For the class, we need to come up with a portfolio of at least 12 pieces, and so far, I've done about 14. Ironically, doing all of this is quite therapeutic (at least it's not a 12-page paper). For a beginner, I've done a pretty good job, don't you think?

When I first sketched this, Thalia wasn't very impressed because of the ungraceful pose. I personally, really liked the pose because of that. I found the reference from a very provocative Valentino ad with model Iris Strubegger; mine is more on the demure side. I did this with charcoal, which is my favorite medium to work with even though it is really messy. I went into it with some white acrylic paint to give it some highlights.

Given that watercolor is not where my strength lies, I really worked this one. I found the reference from a Michael Kors ad with Carmen Kass. Originally, the pit area was supposed to be open, but the black watercolor bled into it, so I couldn't really implement my design. Thalia gave it some random smudges to make it "not look so hard."

I really struggled with this one because I had overworked it to the point where it was almost unfixable. Let me tell you, dry color pastel is a bitch to work with, but it does give color to a monotonous palette. The reference was a very simple black and white look from Harper's Bazaar, but somehow I managed to complicate it with an orange jumpsuit and purple stilettos. I originally added green for the background, but it looked like grass, so I remounted it and gave it some shadow.

This is one of my personal favorites and it really shows my knack for charcoal. The reference was an Akris (talk about awesome design) ad. I absolutely love the hard and soft color palette of the soft neutrals, blue and the stark black with the hard line graphic element. It will go into my professional portfolio if I apply for a job in the industry.

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