Baby Shower and Drawings... not at the same time.

This past weekend I helped host a baby shower. The mommy to be was beautiful and glowing, the guests were lovely, and we had more than enough food. Party success! My co-hostess has already written an eloquent post, and you should read it there. She gave me way more credit than I deserve. And doesn’t mention all the reconnaissance she ran, finding a bunch of different possible venues, and dealing with the one we picked. She made sure we had tables, chairs, the linens, finding just the right plates (twice), made all the invitations… The girl is amazing. And she’s selling her stuff, you should check it out.

Other than party planning, I’ve been mostly just sketching. My knitting has taken a back seat, partly because it's so hot, and partly because I'd forgotten how much I love to draw and have thrown myself into it.

I took an Intro to Fashion Illustration class two weekends ago, and loved it! We worked on croquis (pronounced cro-key). It’s French for sketch, but used in English to mean the elongated figures that are used to show off clothing design.

The croquis are so different from how I’m used to sketching. They are elongated; a human being is about eight times the height of their head tall – croquis are at least nine. Also, croquis are drawn from point to point with straight lines (that you then go over and round out). I’m used to connecting circular shapes when drawing figures. Bottom line, my issue with croquis is that I am only drawing what is in my head, and I don’t have a real life model to look at if I get stuck. I know I’ll get better with practice, but I don’t want to spend time on the basics, I want to design now.

Fortunately Stephanie, who taught the class, handed out examples to use as bases, so we can create designs while we are still working on our own style. Her blog has examples of her work. I love her style of super elongated croquis, it makes the clothing pop. I’m looking forward to taking the second class in the series. It focuses on the skills needed to design knitwear. Right up my ally.