New York Fashion Week continues to wow us with amazing designs and trends for the upcoming season. Today, we’re taking a behind the scenes approach and delving into the world of fashion illustration. Fashion sketches are as unique as their designer. This technique from Essential Fashion Illustration: Color and Medium shows you how to work with watercolors to create a beautiful, feminine design.
This is a technique of painting with colors diluted in water. The colors used are transparent, and their opacity depends on the amount of water used to mix them. These colors can be found in various formats, such as tubes, blocks, watercolor pencils, and as liquids. The most common support for working with this technique is paper. With the wide variety available, the most adequate is one that has a higher basis weight than normal paper, which can be found in different textures and colors. The tool most often used to apply it is the brush. Due to the way in which they are employed, the use of watercolors offers many possibilities, such as even washes, color overlaps, and gradation. It is also possible to create different effects with different application methods, such as with a sponge or scraper. Thanks to these characteristics, it is the ideal technique for representing transparencies and light fabrics, such as silk or gauze.
From a very early age Verónica Ballart (Stockholm, 1979) felt a strong inclination toward drawing and fashion. Her first studies focused on graphic design, after which she moved to Barcelona—where her mother was born—to continue the same degree in the design school IDEP. Her work placement in the graphics department of Mango presented her with the opportunity to apply her designs to T-shirts. Due to her high standard of work, she continued at the company for a year after having finished the placement. Following this she worked for Incites, a fashion design studio, creating graphics and illustrations for clothing. Today she works as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator, collaborating with various brands and companies. Her inspiration comes from her travels, the street, books, and magazines.
First the figure is drawn with a pencil, without too much attention to detail. Before color is added, the area of paper that will be painted on is moistened with a brush. After waiting a few minutes the skin tone can be applied to the entire body, including the top.
Once dry, the top is painted in a light shade, in this case gray, and a fairly diluted layer is applied so that the skin color is still perceptible. It is recommendable to use few brushstrokes, in order to avoid the brush leaving water marks.
Shading is created to donate the volumes and emphasize folds and creases. To do this, various layers in darker shades are applied, which are painted over the whole body, including the top. To create a greater variety of texture, different tones are used.
The last step is to paint in the details of the illustration. To do this, a fairly undiluted watercolor is used, which is applied with a fine brush that allows small elements to be painted like the polka dots, folds in the arms, edges of the top, eyes, and mouth, etc.
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More than 250 illustrations illustrate the significance and creative use of color in fashion illustration
From the first rough sketch pursuing the development of an idea into fabric choice and draping style, fashion design is an exercise in imagination and problem solving. When it comes to documenting the evolution of fashion as culture, we could safely say that illustration has become fashion design’s number one ambassador, covering a visual timeline of materials, techniques and styles that have graced the fashion world over the past century. This book features more than 250 illustrations. Practical exercises will guide you through creative activities focused on contemporary fashion illustration. The exercises include suggestions and tips, and are executed by practicing contemporary illustrators. Instruction provided will allow designers to improve their drawing skills and communicate their vision effectively through a range of illustration mediums that incorporate color as a contributing element for both style and texture. With this special attention to color and how it is perceived the illustrations highlight how subtle nuances or striking changes can occur when rendered using different techniques in gouache, watercolor, pencil, pastels or digital, and how these materials can transform the feel and mood of each illustration.
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