The End

Thats the Muse project all finished! The Indigo part, and the Illustration part. For the Indigo part of the project i learnt a lot and also sold 3 designs. For the illustration part of the project i taught myself how to use photoshop so i think its been a success! So unless i have any more information about this project or hear from Custo Barcelona or Kenzo (who i sold my designs to) then i wont be posting on Ally and Audrey anymore (it would be odd - my next project isnt going to be about my mate Ally or her kitten Audrey!). So have a look at my new blog 'Hats may be involved' (i know, strange name) to find out about my next project 'Sway', or my website, rowenna.net. Byeee!

Finished

Picture frame collage

Made some more little picture frames in Photoshop.

number 6

Oh no slept in again! Have to work late tonight to make up for it. Heres the last one, dont think its as good as the others. Like the shape of the dress, but think it looks a bit to much like a kimono with the florals on it. Not cool enough. Oh well, leave that till later, going to work on my sketchbook and background patterns today. Marks been away for a week so have been making the most of having the computer all day. He gets back tomorrow night, and of course im glad hes going to be home, but i could really do with an extra day on the computer as the projects due in on thursday.

number 5

Number 5 - the background of the jumper is a random picture of knitting from the internet which i changed the size and colour of. 1 more to do, am stuck on ideas, need to read a magazine for inspiration!

number 4

Not sure if this one is maybe a bit to simple? Might try it again with a little collar or something. Wanted it to be quite plain to show of the design properly but i think it needs a little something! Am thinking about adding tights or socks onto some of the dolls, polkadots or something.

number 3

Not sure about this one, am worried it looks a bit too much like a dressing gown! Its supposed to be a coat, incase you cant tell! Used the 'pattern maker' (is that cheating?!) to create the peach pattern, its from a small section of a photo of Ally. Put the green rabbit on as a big brooch. I imagine it in perspex. Like the peter pan collar. Ok 3 more outfits to do!

number2

Heres the 2nd outfit, just put my design onto the top and filled the colour of the shorts in. The collar has a little pattern on it.

number 1

Heres my first outfit design. Will print it separately from the figure and cut it out leaving little tabs so it can be folded onto the figure. Drew the clothes with fineliner, took a photo then added my design on in photoshop. The skirt is from a photo of my 'Audrey the blue kitten' design. I like how you can see the texture of the wool. Like the kitten on a plain t shirt. Filled the background of the t shirt in with the pale pink colour from the embroidery on this design.

The next 3

Here are the 3 'dolls' i did today on photoshop, quite pleased with them. Hope to get started on their clothes tonight. Re-sizing these for printing has taken me ages, thats what i have spent most of my day doing. Also painted my nails 'mint choc chip'. Any way back to photoshop!

Vintage undies

This is what i have been up to today - took ages! Drew the figures with fine liner, and coloured in their little brogues and Luella style eye make up, then photographed them and added the hair and vintage underwear on photoshop. My favourite is the one at the top, in the pink nightie so far. Think its because she has the best hair style! So need to do 3 more of these tomorrow. Have their hair and nighties ready already. I drew them with their arms sticking out so that their outfits can be attatched on with little tabs after. I like how they look a bit odd, hopefully get the rest done tomorrow, then can start actually drawing my designs onto garments. Not sure wether to draw belly buttons onto them or not?

More picture frames!

More picture frames - have been doing this all day! Love the drawn frame against the photos. Have also been working on background papers for my scene, candy stripes and florals so far.

Picture frames

Have been playing around with filters on a photo of me and Ally taken at the start of the Muse project. I am aware that i look like a small boy in this picture. next to Ally who looks very glamorous! Am going to print of a few things like this to go on the 'wall' of my little scene i am making.

Scratch disk?

Apparently my 'scratch disk is full' so i cant do ANYTHING on photoshop, which is brilliant. Back to the fine liners...

Audrey the kitten

Heres another quick photoshop thingy. This is one of Allys lovely displays, just added Audrey the blue kitten onto the top.

Ally wearing one of my designs!

Have been playing about adding my designs onto people and objects - some have been succesful, a lot havnt! Im learning lots though. Havnt been posting much recently as i have been spending every waking moment on my essay - handed it in monday so now i can concentrate on my illustration project properly. Its due in in a week and a half so better get to work!

My other blog

Started another blog today, which i have been meaning to do since i got back from Paris - the link is over there > have a look!

Cardboard

Today me and mark made a fake version of what my backdrop is going to be like for presenting my illustrations. Would post a picture, but its not pretty - lots of brown tape and squint cutting! The actual design seems to work well though. Got my foam board and card that i need for making the final thing, which i hope to do at the weekend. Then its lots of designing repeat prints etc for covering the thing. Up to 2416 words on my essay now, although quite a lot of them dont make sense!

Photo Shop Work Shop

Here are the results from my photoshop collage workshop. Learnt quite a lot about photoshop, much more confident on it now, and starting to think i will do most of my illustrations and collaging for this project on photoshop! Obviously all my final illustrations will need a lot more work than this though. Today did a final 'technical drawing' of what im going to build to display my fashion illustrations in, hopefully will build a cardboard mock up before the weekend, and then get started on the proper one then. Aswell as working on the actual illustrations AND writing the last 1500 words of my essay!

Little ornaments

Finally starting to have ideas for this project, although they are a week late starting! I knew i wanted to have some sort of unfoldable/ pop up scene or doll house so have been thinking about the technical side of building it, and also what its actually going to be. My actual fashion illustrations are going to be like those little paper dress up dolls you used to get years ago. Going to draw the people with fine liner, and cut out pictures of hair from magazines for them. Have spent all day looking for vintage underwear photos online for them to be wearing. My designs will be hanging on tiny wire coat hangers (which i ordered from ebay today) and will have little 'tabs' so you can dress the girls yourself. Going to draw a shop interior with fineline, maybe some watercolour aswell, and collage, and have photos of all my little ornaments sitting on drawn shelves. Cant wait to get started on building this, dragging Mark to Paperchase for supplies on Tuesday.
Have to admit, i have been writing my essay (1009 words - only 1997 left!) when i should have been concentrating on this! Ended up not doing the 'photographic task' of taking 50 photos, its not that i didnt try though, hung around for hours but didnt see anyone wearing anything other than black, beige or navy. Tommorow is my photoshop workshop. Hopefully tutors will like my ideas!

Claire a Baker

One of my favourite Fashion illustrators. First noticed her a few years ago when i got 'The Big Book of Fashion Illustration' for Christmas. I love the mix of photos, watercolour washes, stitch and collage. She also does beautiful embroideries, lots of nice pictures on her website.

Peter Jensen

As soon as fashion illustration and collage was mentioned i started to think about this collaboration between Peter Jensen and artist Laurie Simmons. Love it!


Tommorows task - Spend the day taking 50 (FIFTY?!) photographs of people. Think of a relevant theme for your research. Your subjects could be either all wearing hats or scarves, in all one colour, 1920s style etc. Sorry but, have you ever seen 50 people in 1920s style in the same day? No me neither. Not that im looking for 1920s style but thats not the point. So i havnt set myself an actual theme, im just going to look for girls wearing bright colour and fun shapes(even this may be tricky in rainy london, everyone is dressed in black!), relevant to my project and see what happens! Wish me luck, im going to need it.

More portraits...

Very different styles and eras but like all of these. Will start from the top - Sarah Siddons, by Sir William Beechey. Painted in 1793, cant believe how old it is! Sarah was a famous Shakesperean actress. I love the mask she has in her hand, quite a spooky portrait.
Phillip Mark Jones, by Hans Erni. Like the style of drawing here. Love the really life like face on top of line drawing body. Something to think about for my collage workshops.
Twiggy by Cecil Beaton, 1960s. An exhibition of Twiggy portraits on. Liked them as they are more modern, and more relevant to my project than all the victorian type paintings. I like this one, very quirky and fun. There were 2 others i particularly like but cant find pictures on the internet anywhere.
Maggi Hambling, self portrait. "...Personal relationships and objects from her Battersea Studio."
Love the random placements of objects, just floating round! Quite eccentric. Not to sure about the stlye of painting, but love the idea, and the slightly unusual colours.

Todays Task - National Portrait Museum

First off - you will have to excuse me, my U button is on the blink so there may be some missing!

Ok, so today we had to meet at the National Portrait Gallery, and were asked to photograph and sketch portraits (from a list we were given, and then portraits relating to the style of or project). Had taken 1 photo, then get in trouble as no photography is allowed in the gallery. Not sure i really understood the task today - as most of the portraits are very old and traditional they didnt go with my project, so just took photos of things i liked really. Although these 3 are old men, and dont have anything to do with fashion illustration, i quite liked them. Especially the one at the bottom. Like the unfinshed colour, and how part of the portraits are painted, part are drawn. Gives a 'collagey' effect.

Workshops

We were asked to choose 2 workshops out of the 6 or 7 offered. There were limited spaces, and about 60 girls fighting to get to these little bits of paper to sign up. Nightmare. I managed to get signed up to the 2 i wanted though, which are Collage on Photoshop, and collage with Kathy. The others offered were things like life drawing etc which i have already done a lot of. The photoshop workshop might be a bit tricky for me, hardly no experience but Mel thinks i will be fine. Looking forward to trying these workshops out.

Illustration Project

'Referring to your Indigo collection you are asked to develop a series of fashion illustrations to illustrate yor collection of designs.

Explore ideas of how yo can evoke the mood of your theme using the figure and other images you with to incorporate. Your illustration shold reflect the mood of your collection. Consider a genre and look at how artists/fashion designers use an ambiance and nuance in their work.

Experiment with various media - including photography, collage, CAD and drawing. Trace the figre using various styles, photograph your friends to get compositions and poses to work from.

Research current styles of illstration used in graphice, fashion and advertising. A series of techniqe workshops are offered.

My Website

Has been updated. New layout and design. Will be adding photos of my last project in the next few days.
New project breifing tommorow, all i know is that its called 'illustration and presentation'. Rumour has it its a sort of continuation of the Muse project. On tuesday we have to present all our work so far in 2nd yr to be graded, wish me luck!

Custo Barcelona

Found this website where you can see Custo's collections right back till 2002. Have looked at the 4 most recent collections.

Clara

This lovely little pig belongs to my grandmother Lillian (was visiting her again this weekend and noticed the pig while i was doing some dusting for her) and before that it belonged to my great grandmother, Clara. Think he/she will be lovely to draw.

Bye Audrey, Bye Daphne!

Audrey the blue kitten and Daphne the little deer are off to new homes as well! Custo Barcelona purchased them for E350 each. They also sold on the Tuesday when i was working, which was really nice. Went to see their shop in Paris and took this photo. These 2 designs were by far my favourites, hope i get to see them used one day - keep checking the website! Altogether Chelsea sold 25 designs, which is the most they have ever sold at Indigo. It was mostly prints that sold, the 6 to Kenzo, my 2 to Custo, 5 or 6 went to Louis Vuitton!! Lots also went to Desigual. We did really well!

First sale!

Yep, thats right - i sold a design to Kenzo! It was my 2 peg dolls. On Tuesday, the first day of Indigo i was working at Chelsea's stand. Within the first hour or so of the day Kenzo bought 6 designs from us. They chose 3 of Georgia's, she had lots of lovely painterly patterns in really cute colours. They also bought a pink and red check of Holly's and a quirky print of Harriet's, which had birds, deers and sunglasses if i remember right. And also my Martha and Mabel peg dolls! The 3 buyers for Kenzo were speaking in French so i didnt catch most of what they were saying, but when they held my design up they said "Pour le bebe" which im pretty sure means "For the Baby". How lovely would it be to see my design on babies?! I sold my design for E350, but i am just so happy that people like it!

Daphne the little Deer

Screen printed onto hand dyed wool with embroidered flowers on her back.

Martha and Mabel the peg dolls

I first saw these 2 dolls at Pollock's Toy Museum. They are printed on the same scratchy wool as the odd green rabbit. The detail on their faces and around the stars on Mabel's dress is embroidered.