Learning to draw fashion illustrations...

Copy of a Catherine Malandrino sketchPractising draping detailsSketch of our teacher's 80's dress!Still having fun at college, thanks for asking...

Here's some drawings I've done in our fashion illustration classes. 

Try copying drawings that you like.

Or work from real life garments. 

Practice, practice, practice!

By the way, when I was a kid, I couldn't draw to save my life.  Just ask Christina, a friend in grade 6 that I had to borrow a drawing from, for show and tell time! But I do believe it's like reading and writing, you can learn to do it.  Betty Edwards' book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a fabulous book for those who want to learn to draw.

Learn to sew... Faster! Straighter! Neater!

Am loving our sewing class at college - those industrial machines can go at breakneck speed!  To get used to them, we've been doing lots of exercises on squares of Vilene.  If you'd like to give them a go on your machine, (well worth it!), I've made a little tutorial for you here.

Click on a pic to see helpful notes. Enjoy!

Starting Fashion Studies...

First week at Fashion Design & Technology school at MSIT... A little strange for me as I'm so much older than most students!  Lots are recent school leavers - mostly aspiring fashion designers.  Our Industry Awareness class was a bit of an eye opener - designers' jobs are pretty scarce, but there's work going for sample machinists (who sew a prototype garment that is sent overseas for manufacturing) and patternmakers (the area I'd like to move into) are sought after too. 

But aspiring designers don't despair - some do just fine.  Brissie finalists in first series of Project Runway AustraliaMetropolitan South TAFE's most famous ex-student is Leigh Buchannan, runner up on first season of Project Runway Australia.  Juli Grbac (the winner) studied in Brisbane too, at Gateway TAFE.

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