When Creativity and Coffee Collide.

This morning I had the pleasure of finally meeting up with an artist I've admired for quite some time. I've always had an interest in fashion illustration (remember this post?) so when I discovered her work I immediately loved it. 

Andrea Stajan-Ferkul will be exhibiting at the Toronto Artist Project in just a few weeks, so I'm grateful that she took time out from her busy schedule to meet me for a coffee and some 'shoptalk' 

Andrea comes from a background of graphic design and fashion illustration which translates beautifully onto her fine art canvases. I can envision her paintings of high end fashion and accessories adorning the walls of boutiques, spas, contemporary condos/lofts and homes. In fact, I'm almost sure Carrie Bradshaw would have one hanging in her New York brownstone.

Please visit Andrea's website to see the full extent of her talent. She also has a Facebook page here.

Fashion Illustration, Old School.

I found my old portfolio today with my sketches I did way back in the day at OCA-when it was still OCA and not OCAD as it is now. Sadly, I lost much of the work I did in school due to a flood we had in the basement of a rental apartment we used to live in.

These drawings were all done in Sunny Choi's fashion illustration class. I was very much into fashion back then and Sunny's fashion illustration class was my favorite. She would set up easel and draw during the class too. I loved to watch her draw, the way she worked her pencil or chalk line was amazing, and still is to today. Check out her website here.

We drew from live models. Here I sketched three separate poses by the same model on one page. I guess I thought this was really creative back then.

In looking at this sketch now I realize that for fashion illustration, the brides bottom half is too short and I should have made her legs longer.

I still love this dress the model wore that day. I had a similar one and actually I had the same earrings and hair. Hey, it was the eighties!!

I'm happy this wasn't destroyed with the other work. This sketch was one of my best pieces and yes, I did get an A on it. :-)