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Thursday, October 24, 2013

Adventures in Watercolour


When I decided to turn Bell Street into a bridal business, I decided that I needed to get a lot better at fashion illustration. I can't churn out bridal samples quickly and cheaply, so I can't rely on samples and photography to communicate my design ideas. A beautiful fashion illustration goes a long way in getting customers excited about an idea, but I had one problem - my fashion illustrations have never been very beautiful. I had a great illustration teacher at uni and learned a lot from him, but I've found that if you don't use your illustration skills regularly, you lose them.



I've been a fan of Katie Rodger's work at Paper Fashion for a long time so I was excited when she offered an online course in watercolour techniques. The class taught how to mix colours and create a colour chart (above), and how to render different textures such as leather, suede, sequins and satin. This was perfect for me as I was quickly realising that when most of your designs are white or ivory, you need good skills in rendering fabrics and details!



I illustrated my favourite Golden Ponies shoes as an exercise.



I'm hoping to get a lot better with practice (I think I have improved since I first said that a year ago!), but I'm enjoying the experimentation for now.

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