Teaching Fashion Illustration at Stitched Fashion Camp

A few weeks ago I spent a day out in East Hampton teaching fashion illustration to the adorable campers of Stitched Fashion Camp. Stitched is the brainchild of Elle's creative director Joe Zee and Parsons adjunct professor Rob Yonkers. Its a week long summer fashion day camp that encompasses all the elements of the fashion industry and I had the honor of being asked to join as the industry expert on fashion illustration!

I prepared a handful of lessons including croquis (aka. fashion figures, its taken from French, the literal translation is "sketch." Its pronounced crow-key) development and various fabric and pattern rendering techniques, many of which were taken directly from archived Fabulous Doodles posts. I gave the fashion campers a lesson in fashion figures and poses and demonstrated rendering fabrics including sequins and beading, leopard, zebra, and denim. We also worked together one-on-one and I gave mini tutorials on drawing elements like faces, hair, hands and feet, just about anything the kids said they were struggling with drawing.

Throughout the day the kids tried the fabric rendering techniques I taught them and worked on illustrations of looks from their own mini collections. Many used the ditto's I handed out as a guideline, one of which is the photo-to-croquis example shown above (for more fashion figure info you can click over to my pose tutorial post.) And others created original fashion figures of their own from photo inspiration. Below is a picture of some their fabulous illustrations fresh from their sketchbooks.

Spending a day out in Hamptons and getting to work with these 12 kids ranging in age from about 10 to 15 was truly fantastic. The kids were so adorable, and so eager to learn and improve their illustrations. I have to admit I was a little nervous going in, as I had only ever tutored before one-on-one and this was my first real classroom setting but I have a feeling it won't be my last! It was such a wonderful and fulfilling experience, especially seeing the excitement in the kids eyes and the pride they exuded when they saw what they could achieve.

Click here for more about Joe Zee and Rob Yonkers Stitched Fashion Camp and if you're interested in my private tutoring and located in NYC you can email me at FabulousDoodles@gmail.com for rates.