Blog3 Project Outcome
Before the process of my final drawing, I did some illustration exercises after each class. However, I also met with some difficulties. For instance, I followed the instruction of the PowerPoint to use recycle or waste paper like the newspaper to practice drawing, and I found it was too thin to watercolor, especially some parts of my painting should be colored again and again. Then I realized how precious the regular paper we used is, considered the meaning of why we used the recycle stuff to practice or complete the illustration drawing, also more cherish the word ‘sustainability’ meat to be.
I did my final illustration drawing based on the idea of Alexander McQueen’s 2010ss Spring-Summer show. According to the attached picture of the modeling in show, McQueen gave us the answer to how the future of human beings would be. That is: the human will finally about to return to the ocean, which means if the ecosystem or environment on earth is destroyed again, those who were evolved from the sea will be back to their original place eventually. What is more, we can see that McQueen’s consistent theme has been refined into short skirt design – elaborately processed marine reptile print, as well as the outline of the tight waistline and bell-shaped flower skirt. From the initial green and brown, gradually into light green and blue, color in the cushion hip full skirt silhouette staged, decorated, and shaped. Each dress is a combination of computer art and McQueen’s iconic high-end custom-tailoring. Therefore, no matter from the perspective of color or the significance that the designer gave to the show, it is an excellent material for me to complete my final project.
As for further personal development, after complete my final drawing, I think Alexander McQueen’s collection 2010ss is good propaganda to raise the public’s awareness to pay more attention to our earth and the environment. Then I do more research on social media to see what people do to improve sustainable development. In particular, we experienced the latest ‘The World Earth Day’ on the 22nd of April this year, and we can see more and more fashion medium or people who are working in the fashion industry stand and speak for sustainability and social responsibility. For example, Vogue interviewed women who are influential to the fashion industry and listened to them about what challenges and changes will fashion people to be meeting while doing sustainable development.
To conclude, I think all the research and the practice I did allow me to draw a better final illustration work and perceive more that sustainability can be used in any corner of fashion and it’s everyone ’s responsibility to make our society become better.
25th May 2020 @ 3:41 pm
I read through Yanyu Pan’s blog post on fashion illustration and I enjoyed reading through how she really researched into the designer’s work, relating it to the better lives themes and finding reason to decide upon one of the designs for her final illustration. Within her blog, she focuses mostly on sustainability out of the main themes, looking into nature and environment themes of some of Alexander McQueen’s collections. Although she faced some difficulty with the drawing practice, it’s good how she learnt how the material she painted on is affected by her choice of painting medium. You can see how she has become more aware of her use of products and using recycled material, making her work more sustainable as she practices the illustrations.
Although for illustrations you’d normally want a clear paper to work on, I like the effect of the recycled paper underneath her piece. The writing and images showing through the negative spaces and areas of lighter paint creates an interesting effect to the piece, making it fuller and adding to the shading of the piece. It was nice to see her include photos of the work as it allows the readers to see and understand what is being described. This made me think that it could’ve been something for myself to have added within my blog post.
As somebody who isn’t as familiar with McQueen’s as others in this institution, it was interesting to read into her analysis of the designs. The theme of the dress strongly links to modern questions of environment and the ecosystem, and Yanyu has related this to the recent Earth Day. She also mentions the fashion industry and how people are working towards sustainability and social responsibility. This part was fairly brief and I would have liked to read some examples of how this is progressing. Additionally, with mentions to vogue interviewing women on challenges of fashion moving towards sustainable development, I was very intrigued and would have liked to read about examples of this too.
Her final illustration depicted the shape and body of the dress well, including the height and style of hair in the photo. In all of the photos you can see how watercolour has been the main medium with tissue paper in one of the practices. The blend of colours is smooth and suits the theme of water in the piece, but with watercolour being a very soft medium, it would be interesting to see how she could go about adding more texture to her illustrations, especially within the skirt element of the dress as it shows lots of volume and folds of overlapping material. Either with physical materials like the tissue paper, or with more practice into developing techniques to create different textures with the watercolours, it could really help to push the illustration forward. Overall, Yanyu has done a great job into reflecting upon her work in this Better Lives unit and has put a lot of research and thought into her creation.