Life Drawing

I haven't drawn in quite a while so a whole day of life drawing was just what I needed to get back into the swing of things. It was my first session at LCF and we drew models using charcoal and also pen with soggy tea bags to experiment with running ink. Here are my favourite drawings from the session.

 

Exploring Brick Lane

The first project of my Fashion Illustration degree is focused on the idea of London being home to many contrasting styles and fashion 'tribes' amongst its many different districts. I have been asked to explore the style of Brick Lane and Shoreditch through illustration, and produce a printed Fashion Streetbook to encapsulate the unique style of Brick Lane.

First, I took my camera along with me to take some initial photographs of the area and whatever took my interest. I was mainly drawn to the graffiti and posters found down alleyways and doorways and was inspired by the layering and textures built up. I like the idea of the ever-changing collage of imagery and the way the colours and textures build up over time. This is something I aim to explore within my own image making, and I will use these photographs as a starting reference.

I will visit Brick Lane again to take some more photographs of the clothing and specific trends that I come across, but for now these images will provide inspiration as a starting point.



Time for some GIFs

I've been experimenting with making animated GIFs for the first time using Photoshop Elements for my final major project. Considering it's the first time I've given it a go I'm quite pleased with the outcomes:

For this one I played around with layering the graphic shapes to obscure the face more and create more confusion within the image. I wanted to keep the colours basic and graphic so along with the black and white imagery I chose to keep to primary colours. I think the shapes, colours and lines create a definite 80's vibe which was unintentional but something I like now. The imagery was mainly inspired by Andy Warhol's 1975 screen prints of Mick Jagger, which I saw in the National Portrait Gallery:

I also created this GIF which explores negative and positive space between clothing and the body:

Within my project I am exploring the idea of fashion and clothing building identity, and the body as a blank, meaningless thing which clothing adorns to create meaning. By separating the clothing and body as I have done here I am addressing this idea and the way we can be identified just through clothing and not bodily features.

This theme of negative space and removal of the body was greatly inspired by Christina Christoforou's illustrations in her 'Whose Hair?' book, in which she draws iconic hairstyles of celebrities which we recognise even without facial features:

These animated GIFs have hopefully provided another dimension to my project, and I found it fun to experiment with a new digital technique to explore my ideas.

Emily xx

Let Them Eat Cake

Here is an illustration I did a while ago in response to Meadham Kirchhoff S/S 13 and this look in particular:

I used this outfit in my illustration but also drew influences from my fascination with Marie Antoinette:

Although I painted with vivid watercolours, I also like the outcome when converted into black and white in Photoshop:

Emily xxx

Twist and Shout

Recently I styled and shot a 1960's mod themed look with two friends at college. I'm pretty pleased with the outcomes and these were my favorites:

The entire shoot was themed around the colours of this pretty skirt from Topshop:

We all danced to this to get us in the spirit of the theme:

Oh George why wasn't I alive then to marry you?

Emily xxx

My Boy Lollipop

As promised, here are the results of my candy styled photoshoot, after a bit of editing on Photoshop. I wanted to try and desaturate the colours of the background, hair and skin so that the pastel colours of the clothes and accesories would become more pronounced, and hopefully this worked:

And I'll finish on this note:

Velvet Emily xxx

I Want Candy

I thought the best way to begin this blog would be to just dive straight in and post work that I'm doing at the moment. At college I'm mostly focusing on fashion styling and photography right now, and most recently I carried out a shoot with two of my friends. My inspirations were drawn from multiple sources:

The aesthetics of Sofia Coppola's 2006 movie 'Marie Antoinette':

Both Meadham Kirchhoff's S/S '12 and S/S '13 collections which I think I will love for ever and ever:

My JuJu jellies which I am dying to wear but can't (it's snowing right now as I look out of my window D:). I decided to resurrect them for the shoot after seeing these babies from Chanel S/S '12:

And really I just wanted an excuse to take photo's of my pretty Topshop toile de jouy neon pink printed shirt which I think I could live in for the rest of my life and not feel the need to change:

I also drew this sketch to help finalise the idea in my head of the kind of nineties bubblegum-pink, sherbert-lollipop, candycane, sickly-sweet look I had in my head and the kind of thing you'd imagine when listening to Millie Small's 'My Boy Lollipop' (which always reminds me of the Spice Girls move 'Spice World'):

I used all clothes I owned and never realised how many pink and blue things I had. To complete the look I bought some bright pink tights from H&M, as well as cute schoolgirl pink and blue bobby pins from Accesorize to emphasise the innocent little girl aesthetic. Throw in some pink and blue balloons, some sherbet lollipops and pink bubblegum and voila! I'll post the results in the next post...

Going back to the Marie Antoinette/Candy theme, this was the starting point for me, and I must have re-watched it about 20 times:

I hope you'll like the results!
Velvet Emily xxx