Sketches

I am not an artist. Not in the typical sense of the word, at least. I've always been better with what you can work with in your hands than creating something out of thin air--in other words, I've never been able to draw very well. You only get better with practice, but for a long time, I didn't even like practicing because I was never able to make anything look like it did in my head, and since I could do it with fabric, why even bother putting it on paper first?

But I had to sketch for an assignment for class (and it was only be the beginning of such assignments, I know). We were supposed to choose five design sections (I chose dresses, skirts, coats, sweaters, and necklines), and then choose elements from each section (sundresses, cocktail dresses, tube skirts, bubble skirts, peacoats, sweater dresses, aran sweaters, cowls, one-shouldered, etc.), roughly sketch a design for every element from each section, do polished sketches of one garment in each section, and then put together a final look combining some of the polished sketches. In all, it came to 20-something sketches.

Because there was a lot of prep-work involved (putting together inspiration pages of photos and such) & I had massive amounts of other homework, and (let's be honest and get to the real reason) because I'm such a procrastinator, I put the actually designing off til the last minute. The night before it was due, I stayed up all night, listening to music and sketching and putting together swatch cards, eating french silk pie at 3AM for caffeine, and really enjoying the process. The most difficult part of it was, surprisingly, the actually designing. Some things were really easy for me to design, and for other categories I'd spend ages staring at the paper before I got ideas. Maybe if I hadn't left if off til the end it wouldn't have been so hard? I had never had to sit down and design so much, and such a range, all at once. So it was tough.

But worth it. I like what I put together, and I think the experience was really good for me. I've definitely gotten better since then, as I've been sketching almost every day of break so far. (Practice really does help!) I think I'm doing a better job of making the clothing less 2-dimensional, and my girls look better--and have different poses, haha. So, with all of that said, here are some quick photos I snapped before I turned it in. Some of these designs are good, some aren't. Some are innovative, and others are decidedly less so...









This was one of my favorites. I was kicking myself at the time for choosing an Aran sweater as a category, thinking, "how am I going to design--and then draw!--knitting??" But I love how it turned out and absolutely would wear it.



& the final look:



One of these days I'll scan my more recent sketches. I've been doing the technical flats along with the fashion sketches, & I'm much better at those--and my brain understands them better!