I went to the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit at the VMFA with Grace. I'm very interested in fashion and wish that I could design it, or even just figure out cute outfits of my own, but unfortunately all I can do is look at it. The difficulty of fashion design was really brought to my attention at this exhibit, because it had a wall of Yves Saint Laurent's sketches and planning. I didn't take any photos of them, but maybe somebody else in the class went and took pictures of those.
I mainly took photos of the pieces that appealed to me and that I would wear (the suits! I loved those suits. The flowers and frills and cosmic pins!) but also took photos of outfits that reminded me of my original characters. I thought I could draw my characters in those outfits maybe. The black lace dress with pink bows reminded me of Astrid, and the gold/black leafy outfit and gold/black geometric outfit reminded me of Liao Xifeng. So, the exhibit was helpful for that. I always am in need of ideas, so while my main struggle is just WHAT to draw (or particularly, what do I draw the person doing?) it's helpful to have an outfit established, especially one that I feel suits the person in the drawing. Some of the pieces at the show were also definitely haute couture ("high fashion" [not meant for wearing on the street, meant purely for artistic purposes]) so that was cool to see, because the artistic side of fashion often gets overlooked by people not in the industry. I think everybody loved that one yellow drapey dress (I didn't get a picture of it), because I saw it on instagram and I know Grace loves it, and with things like that I'm just very impressed. How do designers manage to shape the fabric exactly how they do? It's like sculpture. So cool.
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Knoo is an illustrator and graphic designer in Japan. It's hard to come by information about them, because there is a limited amount of text on their minimalist website (and even less in English), but I still really appreciate their art. They post the most frequently on their tumblr (http://knoo-o.tumblr.com/) and I'd recommend checking it out. They also have a website and a twitter.
Knoo draws rather simple illustrations, with smooth lines and textured colors. There's definitely some noticeable line quality in their work (wow! Kristin liking line quality? never heard of that before.) It looks like they use ink and watercolor, and I can't quite tell if some of their work is digital or if it's just scanned well with bright colors. I think some of it is digital. I really like how they're able to convey the figure simply and delicately. I noticed they do an interesting triangle of yellow for blush. I think that's a cool idea. I've been wanting to do something with plants and I noticed a few of their pieces feature plants, so, I might be able to draw something from that. Really I just like to look at the simplicity of character in the pieces. There's also a good use of color that I could learn from - using a bit of color in addition to black and white. I found this artist on Twitter recently because another artist I'm following liked one of her tweets. I was amazed because I thought it was a digital work but it's actually a painting. She doesn't post much on her gallery because she works on a piece a lot before it's finished, but on her Twitter she posts process photos frequently.
I mainly love her work for the smoothness and detail that she accomplishes. It's an incredible feat to make a painting (usually oil, sometimes acrylic) painting look like a digital one. I also like her style and composition. The colors she uses are sort of ethereal, and the backgrounds and motifs she uses add interest to each piece. I like to paint, but only with acrylic, and I don't particularly like to go into this much detail, so I don't think I could incorporate any of that aspect of her work into mine. I might be able to draw inspiration from her compositions though, as the people are rather static but the detail in their surroundings makes the paintings far from boring. That's something I have struggled with, so I applaud her for doing that so well. |
AuthorKristin Hines - Student artist at Maggie L. Walker Governor's School Archives
June 2018
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