Fashion Sketching from Life with Markers

Sketching from life is vital to an energetic and informed illustration. Luckily, in New York City there are many opportunities to find your flavor of life drawing. Be it academic, fashion, sequential art/ animation or architecture there is a group somewhere for everyone. I personally try to hit ALL of them as often as I can manage but fashion and life drawing at Society of Illustrators are my top in attendance.

Sometimes changing things up a bit can help perfect other areas of expression, or at the very least, keep you from stagnating. I had the wild idea to try and get back into marker rendering after a VERY long hiatus from it.

 

I tend to stick with watercolors at life drawing sessions. I just love to make a proper mess with them. What can i say? I’m a glutton for punishment.

You know what though? They didn’t turn out half bad and I learned a few different ways of thinking.

For best results, get yourself translucent marker paper. Bienfang is best, it is pricy but you will only frustrate yourself with regular sketchbook paper because it bleeds like crazy. With translucent marker paper, you can color on the reverse side for softer effects and use a colorless blender or rubbing alcohol to get different techniques. Experimentation is everything.

I started off a little timid with a very light colored, broad tipped maker. You can see a light taupe color under this yellow line, it didn’t reproduce well here but it’s solid blocks of shapes. Note the line indicating the spine, that is my line of energy, it follows the pose from head to toe. Once I felt good about the gesture, I went in with a more bold color and drew in contour lines to indicate form. I tried not to lift the marker off the paper and simplify as much as possible. Hey, it looks human, Hazaaaah!

Thinking I’m onto something, I continue in this way for a few different sessions.

 Graphic and pattern clothing make it easier to get the body sketched quickly. Blocks of solid color and line help inform the figure.

 

Another fun aspect of markers is that you don’t have to stay with the real color of things. Being as I only had a handful of markers with me I used what I had available.

 

 I learned to layer broad strokes of light color, block in shapes and work rapidly with contour lines. Sort of the reverse of how I approach watercolor, first using line and then blocks of color. Also, the marker only goes where I put it so I have more control over the details. It’s a whole new exercise in thinking out loud in just a few minutes.

 In a later session things got a little more elaborate when I combined marker with watercolor.

The model was simply stunning, I would have liked to capture more details but I was a little off my game that day. It happens.

 

This one started out looking like James Dean when I penciled it in but turned into David Bowie when I pulled out the markers. These two are on regular sketchbook paper, you can see the bleeding and saturation is different.

 Changing things up is humbling but it’s also rewarding. The more you can turn your way of thinking upside down the more flexible at problem solving you will be in so many other areas of life and art making. Life drawing is a great opportunity to hone observation skills and experience the form in real space. Challenging yourself makes you a better artist. Don’t be afraid. Izak Zenou said at a recent fashion drawing session while Bil Donovan interviewed him; “To make great art, you have to be willing to fail.”