Kittys Drawings

Hi All!

The Drawing Salon this week was all about legs and learning how to use paint markers – or whatever they’re called – those Copic pens.  I bought 5 off eBay which arrived just in time. A grey, a skin tone, a colourless blender and two more contrasting shades, a pink and a green.

Legs are really fun to draw because you can make them so shapely. We practiced first on some bleed-proof paper.

Then onto the main drawing – A fairly tricky pose, especially with the sneaky addition of those hands. And the way the leg twists is an awkward one to capture.

I really got into it though, and I’m loving using natural media again. The pens are interesting – they behaved very differently on the two papers. The blender will take a bit of learning too. I also used Derwent watercolour pencils, which when mixed with the pens can give a lot of flexibility with colour mixing and textures. Lots to explore there!
Some detail…

Annnnd thats all for now. On the weekend I will be heading to the Love Vintage fair – most likely on Sunday so if you see me – say Hi! Other plans are a secret for now but I may have some cool pics for you next week. And if I get a chance, I will photograph the latest dress I finished. The coat is being worked on – I’ve underlined it now with my silk organza. When I start putting some seams together, I might even be able to show you.

Anyways, time to go!
Ciao!

Hello All!!
This week’s work is finished and also I have my homework from the faces class. This is the profile view and Angie’s tips helped again, breaking the face down into easy proportions and points of reference.

This week we did hands – another tricky subject, one where practice counts above all! And “fashion” hands are not normal hands – noooo – they have to be stretched and thinned, stretched and thinned, until they’re pretty much alien looking. Because the longer you look at hands, the weirder they become. It’s true – its like the visual equivalent of saying a word so many times it stops sounding like a word at all.

Some practice ones to warm up – and a close up of the just the hands (super hard!).

Then a full figure…

I liked this exercise – how cool is the model’s pose? No one stands like THAT in real life!

Anyways, onto other things…
This week has been busy – I’ve not had a chance to sew since the weekend and probably won’t get a chance to again til Friday evening. I am seriously considering taking a week off work to just do HEAPS of sewing and drawing. A “working” holiday of sorts.
Till soon…

Hi Everyone

Oh look – another post so soon! Yep – I went to my fashion illustration class yesterday night and I’m here to show you the results.

This week we did faces. The tasks we were set were the face in profile, three quarter and front on view. The profile drawing is homework – I better get cracking!

Angie taught us the easy way of lining up the features of the face and tips on what is aesthetically pleasing and what isn’t.

I liked drawing on the coloured paper and using white pencil to add highlights.

Other news: Thanks for all your responses on my last post! I will work on the belt tutorial this weekend and get that up for you then. The lovely Cation Designs requested some pics of the sleeve construction so I will add those to the post too. I haven’t forgotten your Blogging With Cats award either and I am gathering evidence of the fuzz-bum’s’ ways of “assisting” my projects. If only I could capture Boofy chewing on the hanging threads of my coat muslin. Yes – you read that right.

We also took a trip to Ballarat on the weekend (about 1.5 hours by train outside of Melbourne for my international visitors). Much treasure was found! I bought a 60′s girdle for a mere $15….4 pairs of amazing vintage seamed stockings, brand new in their box for $4 a pair, and 4 pieces of fabric for $20! The Mr found some decorative pieces to go on our future dining table – some old glass jars, a set of nesting dolls (weird looking they are) and an old fire extinguisher! Hehe…THAT won’t be going on the table but it looks nice by our antique meat safe.
The interior of our house is coming along nicely. We’re slowly working our way upstairs.  Dad is making us an amazing 2.7m solid Jarrah dining table that will comfortably seat 10. We plan on getting some Eames replica chairs to go with (can’t afford the real ones unfortunately) and then moving all the sofas and TV upstairs. That will then become the living room….Not sure what we’ll do about my current desk which is upstairs – and then it’s onto the bedroom on the third floor. And somewhere amongst all that I’ll have to sort out a proper sewing space….

Oh and back to Ballarat (that was a tangent sorry!) – while we were leaving our accommodation on Sunday, a couple pulled up their car next to us on the footpath and the lady jumped out….I thought she might want directions or something (We’d seen the pair at one of the antique stores the day before)…But instead she hands me a leaflet explaining that they were meant to be going to High Tea at the Craigs Royal that afternoon, but their flight back to Sydney was to leave soon and they weren’t going to make it so would we like to take the booking instead?? WOW – How nice of them!! How could I refuse? Hehehe. I ought to pay it forward for someone else I think. And the High Tea was great – the perfect end to the trip. After that we picked up our goodies and caught the train back home. I did a bit of Googling too and discovered who the couple were….A bit stalkerish?? I will be calling them to thank them very soon.

Anyways, enough rambling, I better get to bed.
See you all on the weekend!

Hi!

Yep – for the first time THIS YEAR I have some drawings for you……

My first Drawing Salon class was last night and it was awesome I’m clearly a bit rusty but Angie taught us some cool techniques, the best one being how to ensure you don’t run out of room for your drawing on the page. Draw the feet in after you’ve positioned the head and torso – Der!!! It makes so much sense.

The proportions are so much easier to work out after that.

These two figures are a result of learning to draw a pose with weight evenly distributed and then without. Balance is crucial otherwise the figure looks like it will tip over.

I’ve still got a lot to learn about cleaning my lines up and not overworking it. Legs can be tricky too! Get them wrong and it’s so so bad – but if you get it right, it can make your illustration. Keep working ’til you have the skill to express form like Gianfranco Ferrè…Ha!!

Next week we’re learning faces!

On sewing news – still editing pics…I’ve been busy! Blog post for the amazing green polka dot dress coming soon.
Also – how cold is Melbourne right now? Brrr!! It’s been raining for the past two days and barely made it above 12C – my kinda weather!!

Till soon…

Hi Everyone!
As promised, here is some ART – omg FINALLY. Hahah ;-P

This is a design I did for a company that my partner is involved with. They are having a risk management conference quite soon and needed an eye-popping handout that would go with the visitors welcome pack given to conference attendees. The theme of the conference was psychedelic 60′s! Crazy-cool! There I was thinking that risk management was kind of dry and would need sleek and minimal design. Not so!

Thankfully, their printer specialises in packaging and boxes etc so my idea for a fold up card was feasible. I thought something 3D would stand out amongst anything else in the welcome pack and my client gave me a lot of freedom to do what I wanted. Time being a major constraint of course. I did a small mock-up which got approved and then it was time to get cracking on the illustration.

In typical Esz fashion, I bit off more than I could chew, my plans being grander than the time would allow me to complete such ideas. But in the end I think I managed pretty good. The drawing took up the bulk of the time of course. I’m pretty sure my client is happy (I hope!!) and hope to see the finished result soon. I will post that if/when I get a copy so you can see how it’s supposed to stand up.

I used Corel Painter for the illustration (the mockups were done by hand!) and Adobe Illustrator for the layout.

Next up – More sewing. I’m fairly caught up now on blog-worthy sewing projects. I made a big leap yesterday actually spent some money on some NEW fabric. It is destined to become a dress to wear to a friends wedding. Which is only three weeks away. Cue major panic. BUT – it’s a fairly simple design so I hope I can knock it out quickly. I will start on the ‘wearable muslin’ today and have a go at the proper dress next week. The fear of cutting into something that I actually paid more than $4 a piece for is kinda daunting. FYI, I bought 3m dark green taffeta, 1.5m light green taffeta with black flocked polka dots for contrast bow, and 1.5m pale green silk for the lining….total, $43 which is still kinda cheap for a formal dress isn’t it? The design will be a knee length wiggle dress so I’m hoping I was generous enough with my fabric and have plenty to cover any mistakes. And maybe enough of that dark green taffeta for another project!

That’s about all for now. I better get back to sewing!

Bya!

Hi Everyone!
A new drawing post so soon after the other one. Wow!! Haha.

I wanted this one to be really quick and easy. Took me maybe 6-8 hours all up.

The ref is Solange by Daniel Gurton for Vs. Magazine July 2011 < – I didn’t read the mag but the pics are kicking round the interwebz….Can’t resist cool hair and flowers. Of course it looks nothing like her as usual but that’s never really my aim

(WIPs)

Now I’ve set myself a new project which is a biggie. Starting it tomorrow I hope.

I got an email from my webhost the other day that I’ve used 80% of my bandwidth – this is the first time I’ve got that notice so I guess it means my blog is growing! I don’t get tons of hits – a bit over 100 page views a day sometimes spiking higher and most of the time it’s lower than that. But there are much more frequent spikes than there used to be a year ago so averaged out over the last year, there’s definitely been an increase. SO – if you’ve had trouble viewing my blog it might mean I’ve killed my bandwidth. I’ll be buying more shortly but that’s going to increase the cost of the site quite a bit. Not that I’ll be taking it out on YOU guys hahaha! Ad free blog allll the way

That’s all for now!!

Hi All

Oh dear christ it’s FINISHED!!!
(yes I blaspheme far too much for an atheist )

*phew*

So this drawing took me around 2 whole months to finish. I started mid-June and now it’s August and I’m finally done. That’s why I’ve been holding out on you guys for so long. I don’t think I have the capacity to work on more than one drawing at once otherwise one or more will get neglected. It’s quite possible I am the most inefficient ‘artist’ out there.

The ref was a fashion editorial I found via a blog…..NEXT TIME….I think I might try something original for a change….I have an idea, just need to execute it somehow. Yes – I am already thinking of the next thing.

Sooo….This took at least 20 hours. I lost count though. It’s been stared at for so long that I can’t tell if you can tell how long I spent on this.

Anyways…piccies….

Detail:

WIPs

What do you think? Should I put this on Etsy?

Other news: Lots of sewing is complete that I need to show you as per usual…..ummmm……that’s all for now really…ha exciting! Oh! It’s been quiet around here cos I was feeling pretty sick this week. Stupid colds. I’m meant to be bulletproof!! Hah! (I don’t get sick very often)…Thankfully I was over it in 2 days but still…it knocks you for six.
The boyfriend also bought himself a motorbike. Cool huh! It arrives this week. But he can’t take me for a ride yet cos he’s still on his Learners. I’ve been convinced that I need to get my scooter license…So I guess that will happen soon.

That’s all I guess!
Better run!

EDIT: Oh my GOD you won’t believe how relieved I am this is done. Geeez!