Lovely List: Design Ideas

Design inspiration can come from anywhere and anything. A blank piece of white paper and a pencil can be very daunting, sometimes it really helps to have a specific theme or inspiration source. I've assembled a list for you of possible design ideas to work from. (I actually LOVE making lists. There's so much satisfaction in checking something off a list!) Some of these were assignments of mine from college (FIT) and others I just came up and think could be fun.

• A collection inspired by costume history. Dig deep, how about a contemporary Egyptian inspired collection?
• Design a wardrobe for your favorite character from a book, film, television show, etc.
• Design a concert wardrobe for your favorite singer.
• Pick 2 opposing looks or ideas and meld them together, for example: Urban Quaker, Athletic Granny, Socialite Nun, or Biker Ballerina.
• Your favorite childhood outfit. I know you know the one! Why not use it as inspiration?
• Pick a country or a favorite vacation spot and google image your way to an inspired collection. Why not research Bali, Morocco, Israel or Switzerland and see what inspiration you may find.
• Chose a designer and a theme and design a collection as though you've just been hired as their head designer. One of my favorite projects from college is a collection I designed for "Bob Mackie inspired by Kabuki Couture".
• Create a mood board. Either base it around a theme, with one of the ideas listed above, or create a collection of images or swatches with a similar color scheme, or of papers and textures, like the one I have photographed here or in my previous post.

Design away, and see where the inspiration takes you!

Mood Board

I’m currently taking an online class given by Holly Becker author of Décor 8 and Leslie of Creative Mint. This week’s homework assignment was to create a personal mood board. I’m pretty happy with it, so I thought I’d share it here with you. The photo above is the whole board and below are some close ups I wanted to highlight.

As you’ve probably noticed if your one of my regular readers, I’m currently loving black, white and pink, so those are the colors I decided to work with when developing my board. I thought it was important to have layers of textures so I included: foil printed wallpaper, textured handmade papers, studded black leather, pink tulle, patent leather alligator paper, stingray textured paper, pompom trims, silver metal rimmed tags, and spiral sketchbooks. I really love the juxtaposition of textures like the biker studs and ballerina pink tulle mixed with fashion illustrations and super glam silhouettes!

I also love this black and white photo! In real life I’m a curly girl, the default photo I have on this blog is just the result of a great blow out, my hair doesn't really look like that on a daily basis! So I’ve always gravitated towards images and art with curls, especially when they’re this bold.

Being an artist, and that a big part of this blog is about my artwork I chose to include some of my illustrations. Most are from my etsy shop, but there’s also this sketch I did of my friends little sister that I’ve always really liked and her casual cool vibe just seemed to fit.

In addition to imagery that I liked I also chose key words that resonate with me, and what I want for this blog and for my life really; fashionable and chic, create and inspire, and fabulous doodles.

Secret Weapons {Part 2}

I received such great feedback last time, so I thought I should open my bag of tricks and share more of my favorite art supplies for tackling fashion illustration. First up; colored pencils. I know there's no big shocker here, but since people have asked I thought I should share with you the brand I prefer, Prismacolor.

In my previous secret weapons post I told you about the importance of cool gray 90%. Other colors I have on heavy rotation are white,blush pink, peach, dark brown, cream, and cinnamon. I try to be delicate with these pencils and store and carry them separate from your markers. A little "tip": if they get banged around a lot then the inner lead breaks and its practically impossible to get a good point on them. I keep my most frequently used colors in my new penguin pencil holder from Duck Drake Studio. After assembling my holiday gift guide I had to have it! It's ceramic with a white matte background and shiny glazed penguin and inside.

Prismacolors are on the soft side, which I like when drawing but the down side is that they need to be constantly sharpened. This brings me to the next vital weapon in my arsinal; the electronic pencil sharpener. After going through a few of them over the years I've settled on this Panasonic battery opperated one. It gives a nice long point and has a good amount of power, especially for being battery operated.

Micron pens are essential for intricate details. They come in a few colors and many sizes but the one I have to replenish the most is the 005 in black. This is a superfine tip, only 0.2mm line width of waterproof pigment ink. I often use this pen to render lace, as you can see here on Audrey II and for line drawings, like my lined ladies.
And last but not least, eyeshadow. Yes, eyeshadow. I have a few different uses for it, but mainly I use it for poufy/curly hair (as on Blair here), fluffy feathers (like the ones here on Marie), and to render fur, which I softy add faint pencil lines to. Unfortunatly I don't have any illustrations handy with fur, but I promise I use it and it works brilliantly. The best shadows to use are the cheapest ones your drugstore has, like Wet'n'wild or N.Y.C. They come in a million shades, can be as cheap as a dollar, and come with the mini spounge tipped applicator wand which is the ideal tool I use to color directly to the paper. I recently did a big cleaning of my apt and threw mine out figuring I'll just buy new the next time I need it. That's why the shadows pictured here are a little fancier that the drugstore ones, but I promise the junkier ones work better. Hope this helps everyone, happy drawing.

Book Time {Part 2}

"Fashion Illustration By Fashion Designers" by Laird Borrelli has been gracing my coffee table since receiving it as a birthday present back in August. I thought it was time to share some of its fun designer sketches with you. This book is a wonderful collection of full color fashion illustrations by sixty of todays top designers. (And as if that wasn't reason enough to love it, the white on white polka dot cover is a lovely compliment to my apartment decor.)

(Bruno Frisoni for Roger Viver "London Event"

Marker pen and colored pencil on paper, April 2006)

"Fashion illustration is a medium in which creative expression can be given free rein and designers can explore ideas before the realities of budgets, fabrics or physics intervene. Designers' sketches reveal inspirations, offering insight into a key, usually invisible, part of the creative process." (Borrelli, cover flap)

(Alexander Terekhov, Ink and watercolor on paper, 2003)

(Gianfranco Ferre, Ink on paper, Haute Couture 1987)

Face it

Last week someone posted a question to me on my Facebook fan page asking advice on drawing faces. I've since emailed her a few tips and a book suggestion but I thought I'd share one of my tips to here with you. It's something that helped me, so I thought it was worth it to share and maybe you'd want to try it as well. What is it I'm talking about? Copying.

Let me elaborate. It started when was hired by Timex to do a bunch of illustrations. (Previous post here) They emailed me their previous style guide and I was extremely intimidated by the illustrations of the previous illustrator. I wasn't sure I was right for the job and if I could give them what they needed. Like a lot of artists and women I guess, I tend to be my biggest critique and often have a lot of self doubt. So I decided to copy, or as we used to do back in high school, do "a study" of his work to see if I could pull it off. (shown above)

It really helped me and gave me the encouragement I needed and changed the way I illustrated. I really liked how the lips came out and have since changed my technique with them. It also inspired the necklace and turtleneck I chose for this Marie Antoinette sketch for Material Girls blog.

I'm not saying to flat out copy, publish, sell, or even fully take credit for someone else's idea and creativity. It's just an exercise that I've found to be helpful, especially when it comes to things that can be difficult to figure out such as faces, hands and profiles. You just may teach yourself something new in the process!

Bride for "A Good Affair"

A Good Affair has launched their website this week and it features one of my custom bridal illustrations. I sketched this bride after collaborating with the site's founder and web designer, Natalie and Chris. They wanted a bride who was fashionable, chic, and on trend while still being timeless. She also had to coordinate with the colors of the site and be a blue eyed blond with lots of sparkle.

It was a fun project to work on and I'm really happy with the outcome. They've ordered a poster size print of the bride along with 100 custom gift tags, so I still have some work to finish up on this one. Tags are cut, now I just need to string them. All one hundred of them!