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Here is the second installment of my series "So You Think You Can't Draw". You can find the first one here if you are new and missed it. This series is all about showing you that you don't have to be an artist, or even good at drawing, to communicate your design ideas visually. Fashion drawing can easily be more of a technical thing than an artistic thing for those of us who lack natural artistic flare with a pencil and if it's a technical thing, that means it can be learned.
So in my last article I wrote about using templates under your drawings. I posted some links and I posted a sketch that I had done using a template. I'm sure some people who think their drawing skills SUCK looked at that drawing and thought "this girl is nuts! She's way better than me!" Well you know what, I am here to tell you that you are wrong. This is what my drawing looks like without a template underneath...and keep in mind that I have taken two courses which have greatly improved my skills (imagine what my drawings looked like before!):
Okay, not bad I admit. You can tell it has cap sleeves with maybe a ruffle or a wave, and are those gathers at the neck? Wait, what is that squiggly stuff? And is it a second layer on top of the bottom layer there at the top? Are those seams on the front or was I trying to show movement? Wait a second! Is this a dress or a shirt? So at first glance it doesn't look awful but no patternmaker could work from this and even you yourself, if you were to work from this you would have to either make detailed notes on the paper or you'd have to keep a lot in your head.
Now how about this one, made on a template?
Better? Can you see the HUGE difference that a template can make to your drawings if you are not god's gift with a pencil and paintbrush? The patternmaker would still have a few questions for me if this is all I gave her but some quick specs on a flat drawing and it should be okay.
For further demonstration take a look at the back of this dress drawn on a template and without one:
Okay, so hopefully I have no impressed upon you the importance of using a template and how it can really really improve your fashion sketching skills. These are real drawings that I did this summer. The non-template ones are just quick sketches I made in the notebook I carry with me. When I got home I took a template and I redrew them. The no template sketches took probably 2min each and the template sketches took about 5 min each. Try to remember this when you are drawing.
Go get yourself some templates from my previous column and start redrawing designs you have from before. There may not be as striking a difference between your no template and with template sketches but stick with me and we'll get you there!
Before I send you off blind I want to go over how to use a template. By the way, please don't use the term croquis once you start getting serious with your studies. For now remember that is what some people call them but industry people do not and it will mark you as a beginner. Okay so get out one of the templates. If you do not have a printer and did not print templates from the last entry (shame on you). get a magazine and find a picture of a model that is full length. That means head to toe and wearing tight clothes. The best is a a full length photo of a model in a bathing suit or bra/panties. Hey if you have a sears catologue laying around, one of the pictures from the undies section might work.
Your template may already have guidelines on them but if not, or if you are using a picture, I want you to draw these guidelines on. Eventually you will not need them but when you are starting you definitely do.
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Draw a center front (and center back if you have a back template) line. This is the line that follows the body straight from the center base of the collarbones, between the breasts, through the belly button to the crotch. If your photo happens to be perfectly straight from the front then it could be a straight line but it it probably isn't. In fact, btw, it's best if it isn't because it is difficult to see proper detail, proportion and perspective when clothing is shown straight on.
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Draw two princess seam lines. These lines go from the middle of the shoulder, to the nipple, to a nicely proportioned area on the waist (usually a little more than halfway from the center front to the side), and down the center of the front thigh.
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Draw the armhole guideline which is the place that the arm meets the body, the place that a sleeve is attached.
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Draw a close (but comfortable) fitting neckline. This will meet your center front line which should have started at the base of the collar bones (that spot between them that is hollow).
Now that you have guidelines, when you draw you will use these to help your drawings have better proportion. A mandarin collar will start at the neckline and go up. A sleeve will start at the armhole line. A v-neck collar rarely goes below the nipples nor outside the princess seam. Etc etc. Keep these things in mind when you are drawing and if you need to look in the mirror and imagine where you want a seam or dart to be on your body and then now, with those guidelines, you should be able to find that same spot on your template.
Your homework for the upcoming couple weeks is to redraw some of your better sketches and see if you can make them improve using a template that has guidelines. Also I want you to carry around a small plain paper notebook. Mine is 5cmx10cm. It's just there to jot down quick ideas. Don't worry if you don't use it. I would honestly have to say that I carried this damn notebook around with me for more than 8 months before I got to the point that I actually had ideas when I was out and about and would use it. Now that I have reached that point I use it often because once the ideas start coming, it's hard to keep them at bay.
If you get itchy and want more to do, you can get a headstart on the next column by taking tracing paper and regular paper and looking in magazines and books at clothes. Start by tracing and then drawing. What I want you to do is to trace/draw specific elements of clothes. You are building yourself a resource for future reference of how these things actually look. If you have a "how to fashion illustrate" type book make sure you also use it as the drawings will be clear. I want you to essentially create many pages with different ways of drawing pleats, gathers, necklines, sleeves, etc. A great book for this, which you can probably get from the library, is John Peacock's Complete Fashion Sourcebook which has thousands of basic line drawings of styles throughout the last 100 years. Make sure you look at more than one source though so that you do not get stuck only drawing things the way that one person does. And look at magazines also and see if you can draw it (though that is more advanced so you might want to trace drawings first, then draw drawings, then draw from magazines).
If you liked this article, you might like these drawing books:
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Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Here is the second installment of my series "So You Think You Can't Draw". You can find the first one here if you are new and missed it. This series is all about showing you that you don't have to be an artist, or even good at drawing, to communicate your design ideas visually. Fashion drawing can...
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