Creative Drawing - Sketchbook / composition / communicating ideas

Today, we looked through all of our work and chose the best bits to create our own A3 sketchbooks. The idea was to be creative and chose work that makes you stand out and makes your work stand out.  I really enjoyed this as it enabled me to be creative and do exactly what I wanted to do, even if that was to place it in a messy way.

Creative Drawing - Publication

Finished inDesign publication

My journalistic piece about 'celebrities receiving clothes free of charge' and whether it should be the 'norm' is finished. I wanted it to be in the style of a magazine with the layout inside, but also I wanted it to be longer than a page long. Celebrities tend to be in magazine's all the time, especially the celebrity 'gossip' ones like heat, OK, closer..etc. I also wanted it to look more professional and slightly different to a typical 'gossip' magazine. The article is split across 9/10 pages, and the A5 size works well too. I've used inDesign a couple of times before but I feel l like I have developed my skills further.

I placed the publication in a box because celebrities receive boxes full of gifted clothes, especially Justin Bieber from Calvin Klein. Placing a Burberry styled scarf in the box makes it look like i'm gifting this box to somebody as Burberry are known for gifting celebrities their clothes. 

Creative Drawing - Fashion templates

Making fashion templates was something completely new to me. I've never done something like this before so it was challenging to get the shapes of the body correctly. Life drawing is the closest I've done to this when trying to draw the body correctly, but that was earlier this year so it's something I haven't touched for a while now. 

Throughout the session, I explored different ways to draw models, using different media's. Personally, my favourite way of drawing is with a fine liner, pen, or (coloured) pencils. 

This will be beneficial for my future fashion career as I'll be able to draw models from hand and place clothing on them without having to use templates elsewhere. 

Creative Drawing - Drawing from editorials

Drawing from editorials was very fun as we chose which magazines we wanted to use and draw from. This meant we had a choice of what we drew and what we wanted to do with them. Everyone enjoyed this day but the studio was a mess with scraps of paper everywhere!

                                                                   

A variety of collages took place as well as line drawings and paintings. I learnt different styles of drawing and collaging that I haven't done before, aswell as using feathers to create texture (second image below).

Creative Drawing - Fonts and layout

Fonts -
These are the fonts I shall use in my InDesign document. I didn't want to use a huge amount as I feel that it makes it look unprofessional.

BalboaPlus

Avenir

Layout - 

I couldn't decide what layout to choose so I took pictures and looked at a variety of layouts. 

Newspaper

Newspaper

Magazine

Eventually, I decided I wanted to go for a booklet styled publication which would be in the style of a magazine article. I liked the style of the magazine article above, so I decided to look into that style further. I would preferably like to have 3 colours but use a pop of colour here and there and use images. 

Creative Drawing - Live model drawing

This session was very challenging as it was quick sketches for the first half of the session. The model would change positions every couple of minutes so you had to be very quick. That isn't my style of working as I prefer to work at my own pace. Although, it was very fun and enjoyable.

I used a variety of medias, from pen to collaging to oil pastels. This day was a day of exploring and a day of being creative using whatever you had. I've figured out that my favourite way of drawing is continuous line drawing/blind drawings as they always turn out quite good. 

In the photos above, you can see a variety of styles of drawing that I explored, from colour to black and white drawings. 

Creative Drawing - Typography

Alan Kitching and Monotype exhibiton

Recently, I visited my university's gallery to look at the typography exhibition with Alan Kitching (a leading practitioner in letterpress, typography and design). Monotyping is the global trailblazers in type, and home to some of the worlds most popular typefaces. It shows the process behind making the collection, following the journey from research to workshop space and pieces through to the final outcomes. His way of working is by screen printing and overlapping and layering. This looks so minimal but so effective at the same time. Using a variety of fonts is important as it can change the mood to a piece of work. Typography is used all the time and exploring this by looking at Alan Kitching's work is very exciting. 

  

After visiting this, I wanted to explore with fonts and my own handwriting. That's slightly different to what Alan Kitching as he screen prints but instead, I used my own work and photoshop. Inspired by Kitching himself, I wanted to try layering and use different fonts in order to create a piece. 

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This piece below is my favourite piece as it's similar to Alan Kitching's in the sense that it's overlapping and using layers. I've interpreted it in my own way by placing it over the top of a fashion illustration and using photoshop to create more layers of paint. 

Creative Drawing - Collaging

This was our last day with one of our lecturers (sad face) but it was also an enjoyable day as we collaged all day using editorials. Collaging is one of my favourite things to do as my artwork tends to be quite messy which links quite well with collaging. Our group were also in the most amazing drawing studio which my friends get jealous of.

Collaging with these editorials was really enjoyable as you could absolutely anything with the pictures, which is what I tried to do. I tried to base my theme on celebrity endorsement which relates to my publication. I learnt many different ways of collaging and approaching this task quite quickly.

When I got home, I decided to try collaging using photoshop with my own work too. This was extremely fun as I could be as messy and creative as I wanted to be. I used a variety of layers, scribbles, paint brushes, and patterns from the internet. 

Creative Drawing - Introduction to InDesign

 Today, we got taught how to use inDesign as we are using this program to create a publication in. I've had previous experience with this program but i'm not an expert so this session helped me a lot. 

To start with, we got taught all of the main tools that are shown in this program. Once we got the hang of it, we created a 'national geographic' front cover so we could get use to the basic tools that we will need. 

This session has helped me a lot as I now know why you have to 'place' an image rather than copy and paste it, and how to export the file properly. This will help me with this publication when i'm doing it independently and for my digital fashion unit. 

Creative Drawing - Poole Museum workshop

Rachel Lillie illustration workshop

Our class took a second trip to Poole Museum to attend a workshop with an illustrator, Rachel Lillie; who takes inspiration from her surroundings and story telling of real life events. The workshop itself was very enjoyable but also very challenging as illustration work like hers isn't my strongest point.

As soon as we got there, she talked us through her work and gave us a lot of information on her style of working. We then took a look around the lines of thought gallery and at some of the work that inspired her. She explained why and how they completed that piece of work as well as telling us to remember the work as we were aiming to draw in a similar way to them and Rachel herself.

After this was done, we were set four 15 minute drawing tasks taking inspiration around us aswell as story telling; just like Rachel herself and the artists that inspire her. The way we had to draw so quickly was challenging but quite inspiring as i'm not use to drawing that quickly.

My favourite part of this session was the story telling part, where we created a story from the observational drawings we completed. It was a fun task as you could think of something as bizarre and strange as you wanted. The more strange it was, the better it was! It was a really different way of working for me as I don't tend to draw scenes or create stories, so it was nice being to engage with Rachel's style of working and try out a different approach.

The day was very enjoyable and inspiring as it has enabled me to bring new ideas into my fashion illustration work.

Creative Drawing - Adobe Illustrator - Part 2

PART 2 -

This was the second part of the adobe lesson where we explored the Adobe illustrator software further, but this time we learnt how to actually create garments.

We scanned in our garments we drew in the technical flat's drawing lesson a couple of weeks ago, so we could have a rough outline and a starting point. Then, we just explored with the program by using lines, and curving the lines to create the shape of the garment.

This task was really fun as it's always been something I've always wanted to explore and have always wondered how fashion designers do their illustrations. This is beneficial for me when designing garments and putting together outfits. I prefer this way of working rather than drawing them out by hand as this way allows me to quickly erase any errors I have made and allows me to draw accurately.

(In the process)

Our garments didn't look as professional when just drawing circles for the buttons or lines for the zip, so we were taught how to draw buttons and zips in an easy way. We used the same techniques that we learnt in the first lesson (using the align toolbar), which was great fun as I felt like a professional at using that toolbar!

Creative Drawing - Draped fabrics

Drawing draped fabrics is extremely difficult and has been something i've always struggled with, and after this session, I still can't get to grips with it, even after four and half hours of practising. However, drawing in Passiv Haus always makes things better with how beautiful it actually is for a drawing studio.

Passiv Haus

The draping, creases and fold of fabrics is by the far the hardest thing to draw, especially if the fabric has a pattern as it looks like an optical illusion. One of the fabrics I drew did exactly that as it was striped and the stripes seemed to be going here, there and everywhere! Every time I went to draw a line, I lost it after I would glance at my paper, which was a massive pain. The aim was to get use to drawing different fabrics and drawing their shadows with a variety of medias.

My most effective pieces were the quick sketches I completed, by doing a blind and a continuous line drawing, as the lines are quick and get the basic shape of the garment. Using mixed media within a piece helps the shape and lines come to life a little bit more.

 Doing this task has enabled me to understand the fabrics shadows and shape and understand that each fabric drapes differently depending on the thickness of the material. Drawing draped fabric will always be my weakness, but i'm glad i've spent time analysing a variety of fabrics further which will help me with my work in my other two units.