In the spring, my friend Sonya encouraged me to submit an illustration to 3×3 magazine’s seventh annual professional show. Here it appears in the new annual.

This  week I did  a drawing of Leith Clark for her Style Notebook interview. She is the founder Lula magazine, a superstar stylist (um, Chanel?) and overall seems way cool. Read the interview here!

This week I picked up some sample t-shirts from Mercy (one of my favorite Toronto labels!)

Jennifer Halchuk and Richard Lyle, the label’s designers, produce a t-shirt line exclusively for a shop in Japan, and I created these pen and ink illustrations for their current collection. After providing them with the illustrations, they added pieces of Liberty in fun shapes and along the neckline of the shirts, and then had the illustrations silkscreened on top. (You can click each image to view it larger)

I have to say it was really a dream project for me. Working with people whose work you completely admire, and working by hand, is all so gratifying.

The t-shirts are available at Usagi Pour Toi in Japan.

This week I finally saw Black Swan! Well, it’s only been playing at film festivals for a couple of weeks but it feels like forever! It’s been months if not years since they announced that Rodarte was doing the costumes, and then recently the trailer came out – so good!

The movie is sooo Darren Aronofsky, and if you like him, you’ll like the movie, and if you don’t, you won’t. BUT if you love Rodarte and ballet and Darren Aronofsky, then you will feel as do I about the film!

My second attempt at writing has now been published on The Style Notebook – I did a movie review! Pretty crazy. There is a bit of a synopsis, and a bit of fashion. And of course an illustration! Since it was pretty detailed, I decided to post a little cropped piece of it here on the blog. The composition is pretty sparse here, but to see the rest, check it out on The Style Notebook, or on my Flickr.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting the lovely team at Brill Communications PR firm.

On assignment for The Style Notebook, I got fancied up by the Donato salon team at a pop-up salon for TIFF in the Brill Building downtown. Beside fashion editors (including an editor in chief!), fashion bloggers, and a vintage designer clothing boutique owner, I sat, sipping Prosecco and trying to keep a cute Pomeranian away from my double chocolate chip cookie!

Covering this before party make-up session was super fun, and also marks my first attempt at writing (non-school-related at least!) To accompany the writing, I did an illustration inspired by the popular Gaga-esque nail colour by Deborah Lippman called Bad Romance. Looking at it now, the illustration turned out a little saucier than intended?

If you’re feeling kind, here is a link to some self-portraits taken at home at the end of the night, and more importantly, here is a link to the article!

A little while ago I came across a post on the fifi lapin blog about a most fabulous contest she was holding – to draw an outfit for her to wear at an upcoming book launch. I decided to enter because drawing outfits is super fun for me. I put together an original design inspired by an apron dress I made this summer, along with some fun and practical accessories (note the sharpies!)

Contests are always a gamble. For someone who draws for a living, it’s basically doing work for free. And if you win, some publicity might come your way. If you don’t win, at least you get some content for a blog post!

Peace

Well, I don’t suppose this demonstrates process in a strict chronological way. But it does show one thing I like about working digitally, which is being able to play with layers. As one would with different pieces of tracing paper in a traditional sense, you can almost have more fun with in a digital sense, in that you’re playing with colour and various states of being rendered.

Do I like the first image better? In a way I do find it more interesting. Less literal. Her hair implied instead of given. Her mouth highly rendered in comparison to the other components. Imagine creating portraits like this. How would those commissioning a piece react? It might be interesting to play with the layers of finished portraits some more, working backwards in a way, to come up with something different. More interesting? Hmm. Perhaps a future project idea..

This illustration was created for The Style Notebook. Rita Liefhebber is a Toronto designer, and former fashion editor at Flare magazine. Click here to read the interview.

Alber Elbaz has been working wonders as the Artistic Director for Lanvin since 2001. And he’s also a great illustrator!

Pictured above are some stamps my friend brought me from Paris featuring his drawings. So great! His illustrations have been featured on the backdrop for this Acne Lanvin collaboration photoshoot, on numerous Lanvin products, and apparently he has illustrated a song for Mika, which I would love to see.

Personally, in terms of design, his shoes have always tempted me. Have you seen this crystal-embellished satin ballerina flat? Or maybe these leather boots? Size 9 thanks.

So the silk I bought for the skirt is pretty cinematic, right? (second photo)

With the help of the lovely Kristiann at The Workroom, I was able to finish the skirt I drafted this summer – so awesome. It’s a split tulip skirt and let me tell you, it was a lot of work. The fabric was easy to work with, but a little sheer. I used silk for the drape, and also because I would probably make everything out of silk given the choice. But as I had a bit of a Lady Di sheer skirt, backlit experience at Fashion Week back in March (don’t ask), creating a lining was important. Since lining the front wasn’t much of an option, I created a lining for the back panel only, which did the job of helping reduce the amount of light passing through the fabric.

The waistband was probably the most time-consuming. First I drafted a curved band that when straightened, was supposed to undulate elegantly. But it ended up looking a bit weak. So then I redrafted, adding knife pleats, which gave it more Valentino-like ruffles I thought.

In the end I was so happy to have it sewn together that I didn’t get a chance to iron the hem before the photoshoot, hence the wavy and flipped over a bit front panel in the last picture. But overall, pretty good for a first try at pattern drafting, right?

Here’s the latest illustration I created for The Style Notebook. Kealan Sullivan is owner of 69 Vintage and you can check out the interview with her here!