Session 3: Drawing From Art

For session 3 of ITFS, we worked on focusing our drawings into designs. I wasn’t expecting how our research was going to be used in this class to create designs, and was quite taken aback by this, as the artist I’ve chosen is quite plain, graphic, wordy and geometric. This meant I found it difficult to extract shapes from his works and the research pages I had created and felt unprepared for the task. However, I felt like I overcame this through thinking more outside the box and using the lettering and other more abstract elements in his works to find shapes. I also tried to keep in mind that the shapes we were drawing were meant to be quite bold and outspoken anyway, as they would eventually be made into catwalk collections.

To begin, we created basic shapes from our research. We then had to add limbs to these drawings to create a sort of illustration. I didn’t particularly enjoy this, as this type of drawing isn’t my style and I’m not very good at drawing bodies.

We then had to pick one of these designs (I chose the top left one) to continue on further with. We had to annotate the design and reform it into a coat that could be fashioned on the runway. I was definitely able to see the potential in this design and liked the idea of it being a cape with a high neck and maybe even a collar, as I thought it could be quite an extravagant piece. I did quite enjoy seeing this idea through, but struggled to draw it out on paper. I would have maybe preferred to work more digitally, as I have found myself quite accustomed to that recently, but primarily, would have preferred to be on campus.

I think this switch to fully online learning is going to be tricky, especially when it comes to the design tasks, as I find myself quite demotivated during drawing sessions and like being guided and directed by a tutor in the room to really be able to push myself and give 100% to my work. I found the class kind of confusing; it was quite difficult for the tutor to really guide us online, especially being that we couldn’t see her.

Following on from the first task, we then played with different sizes of the design we had, and different positionings and repetition of details. Again, I struggled with this and ran out of ideas slowly, which is evident within the progression of my drawings.

For the SDS task we were given, we have to repeat this task and finalise a couple of designs we could then eventually use in our final collections. I’m looking forward to experimenting with some of the other shapes I made and maybe trying to think a little more creatively and out of the box, without the added time pressure of a class.

Ideally, since this work isn’t due until Wednesday the 13th and I have classes for the next couple of days, I will probably complete this on Thursday the 7th of January and give myself the day to just design. I would also like to work on this digitally in some aspects, even though the preference of the tutors would probably be hand-drawn! I think if I at least try and come up with designs in a way I prefer, I will enjoy the task better and produce better outcomes.