Day 22 "Art Every Day Month" - Inspired by Fashion

Today, I headed to my local library for the first time since moving to Munich. I'm lucky in that my local library happens to be the main city library. And it really is a treasure chest. As soon as I located the art section, I knew I could get lost there for days. I didn't really go with any particular research in mind, I was just trying to escape the noise of the renovations in the apartment below me.

The first book that caught my eye was a huge tome about Manolo Blahnik. As I've previously dabbled in fashion illustration, but always struggled with feet (they are really hard - as are hands), I thought it might not be a bad thing to get some practice drawing shoes and feet.

I started off using pencil with this advert for Barney's New York, a photograph by Steven Meisel featuring Linda Evangelista draped over a sofa with a Manolo hanging from her finger (this was also good practice for face and hands). I forgot my eraser, hence the sketchy lines.

Then I moved onto shoes proper.

As I got more confident, I just got out my brush ink pen and made these exaggerated drawings, finishing them off with coloured pencil.

 While I was in a fashion-y mood, I had a go at copying this illustration by Tony Viramonks for Valentino (so Eighties!):

Finally, given my soft spot for the Dior New Look (see my 50s Revisited shoot from last year), I grabbed a Dior book I had seen on the returns trolley and created this illustration from one of the photographs (if you look closely, you can see the pencil prep work - it's a good idea to draw the body before you put clothes on it).

I just adored the big poofy dress!