The Eighty Sixth Doodle

You may have guessed by now people: I LOVE DRAWING BODIES.

 

I mean like, live bodies, as in, well...people being all humanesque and stuff. And clothes. I love drawing clothing. And hair. And muscle tone.

 

Well, you get the blimmin' drift.

 

So I created some pretty sick (even if I do say so myself) illustrations for a new London clothing company Drop 'n' Roll, and above is the main header image encompassing drawings of their range of t-shirts for men and women.

 

If you're a small clothing company get in touch about creating some unique one off illustrations for your site. Photos are great to show off individual pieces but if you want something truly different, then hit me up.

 

(Can't believe I just said hit me up. I cannot pull that off.)

The Eighty Third Doodle

Ok, I am not scared to admit it. I have no fashion. I am not fashionable or stylish. Or cool. (LOL joking, I so am cool). 

But on the other hand, I wear clothes don't I? I go out and pick what I want to wear and use it to express who and what I am yeah? So, I must be fashionable; even if it is only in my own little head. Well that's what I believe and I'm sticking with it :p

Berlin Fashion Week

Anyway, even if I myself don't don the lastest trends and always be bang up to date with my accessories (honestly, I don't have the dollar for that) I bloody love creating fashion illustrations. The poses, the fabric, the drama - ARG, I love it. I enjoy forging up-and-coming trends or looks with my own gritty style, and creating something fierce and vibrant. So check out my work for fashionglobalblog.com - I'm sure there will be plenty more to come too....

Spring Trends

The Eightieth Doodle

 

 I am not a fashionable person. I know right, you are shocked. 'But you are so super trendy Ruth,' I hear you cry, well you can stop that weeping right now. I'm not. I just wear stuff I like, often stuff that 'aint cool.

That doesn't mean I don't like fashion though; I am fascinated by clothing design, structure and influence. Fashion illustration is a large portion of what I do, whether it be quite simple images of mainstream styles or slightly more off the wall alternative get ups. I love it all. Drawing the folds and drapes of fabric, how the light plays over it, how the form underneath affects it - HEAVEN.

I created the image above for Amelia's Magazine, a site all about fashion, art, music, design and basically anything rad. You can see it featured on the site here along with a write up about the Raw Talent University of the Arts Graduate Fashion Show - a good read for anyone interested in up and coming talent!

The Seventy Sixth Doodle

We all know I love doing sports illustration, but I also love fashion illustration too. Sketching out the clothes and studying the form of the figure is something I really enjoy!

I recently created this fashion image above for a feature on Fashion Truffles- a great site run by a smashing lady called Viviana in New York. It's full of tips, trends and style - non of which I really have but oh well haha.

I created this image with pen and watercolours, using mainly greys and blacks with a strong blue as the highlight colour. I wanted the illustration to ooze style and sophistication, but to be fun and cute too - basically to reflect Viv herself!

Check out the blog post with my illustration on Viv's site here!

The Seventy First Doodle

I do love colourdy pens. Very often I find myself drawing something in pencil, sitting back and looking at it for a mo, then redrawing it with coloured pens or markers.

 Take this lady here. As a pencil sketch it was nice, but she didn't really pop till I redrew her with coloured pens. You can also use the colour to imply certain areas rather than stick to solid outlines, overlapping and mingling. Basically, you can go a bit nuts!

 

The Sixty Seventh Doodle

The tube is an amazing place. (Before we go any further, I of course mean the London Underground, not like a tube of cardboard from the middle of loo roll.) You see all walks of life down there, it is quite marvellous. Mwahahaha.

This illustration came from a girl I saw on the tube who was pretty funky. Now, she didn't actually have a weird blue aura and I am certain her real life face had an outline - I used artistic lisence 'o course. But she was a hellova lotta fun. Trying to capture that nonchalant, effortlessly cool way she hung from the pole, her funky outfit and hair, her general groovy vibe. 

I mean, I don't know, maybe she is actually a total cow in real life, and I'd find that I'd rather chew glass than draw her. But in my head, and on the tube, she seemed funky. May as well draw funky people when you see 'em ey?

The Sixty Sixth Doodle

Someone said to me that this illustration looks like a dark Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Must be the pigtails!

Outlines are, at times, over rated. It's nice to see what happens when you take them away. How do you keep the concept of shape, depth, form? Do you lose anything? I find that, if anything, you gain more. Sometimes defining pencil and pen lines can hold back the mystery and ease of a piece of art work. Can you be too defined?

Oh dear, I am clearly feeling a wee bit philosophical. 

Take this pigtailed lady above. She began as a sketch, and after a while of staring at her wondering what to do, an idea started to form. I began painting out parts her face, splashes of hair, dark pools for the eyes. And here she emerged, no outlines and all the better for it. 

Odd ey. Take away boundaries of any sort and groovy things can happen.

The Sixty Fifth Doodle

I've been doing a lot of doodling lately. It's odd, you get random times where inspiration seems to abandon you like a slutty unfaithful lover (LOL), yet other times when you are simply saturated in ideas, you almost don't have enough time to draw out all the stuff that's exploding out of your head. BOOM. Any one else get that? I am going to presume you do. If not, I don't care. 

JOKING, I totally do. I am nice. Promise.

I think in the space of 2-3 days this week I completed 5 illustrations. I am not sure how/why/what happened, and before you ask, NO, none of them were below usual par or shite stick men! Perhaps that is why I was so baffled (or basiled, as my friend says. It's a long story. I shan't tell it, but trust me, it's welllll funny.)

Above are two sketches from the initial mad burst of drawing fiendishness, one from a nude life drawing study, and one after flicking through some bloody trashy magazines. Seriously, I don't understand why anyone actually reads them, they really do their best to make you feel like crap.

Perhaps that's where this lady came from. Done just with coloured pens, the pose is a typical one you see in magazines/adverts, but all I see when I look at it is a girl wondering if she's actually pretty or not. Maybe some lasses don't get this, but I am sure many do. 

Don't worry ladies. You're all bloody gorge.

The Sixty Third Doodle and a Happy New Year!

 

I am not a big fan of New Year's resolutions, as, well, I am rubbish and I never keep 'em. ROFLCOPTER.

HOWEVER. My 2013 resolution is something which seems silly to not do, as it is something which brings me endless joy. Draw more and experiment more. UMM< YES PLEASE.

Soz for the capitals. I've drank a lot of coffee today, and yesterday I ate some Skittles. Bad move.

Anyway my attention span is failing me. Today is, the, um, 2nd January? Yes. I have drawn up 3 illustrations so far today. That is cool. The lady above was a sketch after flipping through some trashy ladies mags (how good is YOUR orgasm? I don't have any sort of scale system so I do not know shiney magazine, but I'll be sure to get back to you on that one). Ignoring the nonsense (of which there is a lot. Like, a lot) I looked at the photos and models and fashions. I am not fashionable or even remotely cool, except in my head, but I am interested in it, and in portraying it in my own unique way.

So I doodled this lady and thought 'She's funky. She needs tattoos.' So I added a few and had a look at her. Boom. Lets paint.

Now I blimmin' love watercolours and I am a faithful lover usually, but for her, I wanted the intensity of ink-

 

My personal fave is Windsor and Newton Black Indian Ink as it rocks my socks, and their stuff is on a whole other planet. Put the ink on the paper and it goes 'WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU WANT ME TO DO, I'LL DO IT, I'LL DO IT SO DAMN WELL YOU SILLY WENCH.' And then it gives me a slap. JOKING. 

Basically, the ink is well good.

So kids, here is my final illustration. A mixture of hard black lines, watercolours for tattoos, a bit of scruffy pencil and a big dollop of style. If 2013 holds more of this fun stuff, come on then mate, let's get started.

The Thirty First and Thirty Second Doodles

So I recently did these two illustrations for Amelia's Magazine for Graduate Fashion Week, the top one is Matthew Williamson, the designer who did some bits for H&M, and below is Daisy Lowe at the Fashion Show in London.

I enjoyed doing Daisy (bahahaha it's funny 'cause it sounds rude!) but I was really happy with my Matthew Williamson picture. I wanted the composition to be quite classic, with him flanked by his own creations. When I was researching him, I came across some of his work that was heavily dominated by these deep blues and pink/purples, so I chose these as the signature colours for the picture. Matthew himself was almost an accident as I never intended him to be so dark, but when I sat back and looked at it I felt the contrast worked so well between the almost dream like models and this strong, quite harsh figure dominating the centre. The colour on the girls was also rather experimental as I pretty much just chucked it around, and actually really liked the result! I like the way it makes these girls seem even more fantastical, a figment of the designers imagination.

Boom.

God I ramble on don't I.


Read the full article by Matt Branford here - http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/fashion/graduate-fashion-week-2012-gala-awards-ceremony-part-one/2012/06/20/#.T-Lz6LVYun8

The Twenty-Seventh Doodle

Oh my word, I am obsessed with tattoos. I love them. I mean, probably not all of them, I do know someone called 'Crap-tatts'. Unfortunate nick name.

But I do love them. And I love hair. And I love blue. So I drew this picture.

Shortest version of that story.

The Nineteeth Doodle

I really like the idea of doing fashion type illustrations, but with my own edge. I don't know if you've noticed (HA) but my style is rather messy, gritty and pretty grungy. But I still feel it can go with pretty much any subject matter!

This lady just sort of popped out of my head from a rough sketch, she is very bohemian! I love the layering of watercolours, they literally rock my world. Acrylic can be fun, but watercolour is my true love. Always and forever. Gosh, how emo.

The Fourteenth Doodle

If this lady decided to step on your face, you'd be DEAD. Don't piss her off.

(I'm talking about the imaginative lady who own these feet, not me. I can barely walk in trainers, never mind huge killer heels)

Heels do genuinely intrigue and scare me at the same time. I think they can be super fierce, and tres sexy (yep, I am well multicultural). Yet seeing ladies totter through the tube and wobble down the street in the rain makes me think, 'oh love, just wear flats. You look like a loony'. Who are we trying to impress? Men? Each other?

I, thankfully, wear either trainers (obvs cool ones, like Vans or Cons), flip flops or pumps. Or boots. Heels - a) make me feel too tall against my ridiculously small friends, b) make me walk like a transvestite, and lets be honest, I aint the most girly girl so someone may actually think I'm a tranny in training, and c) they are way more effort than it's worth.

Also, this 'oh, they elongate your legs and make them look thinner and longer' is total balls. They do not do this when you have annoyingly muscular legs like mine - they accentuate it. Hideous.

As the legendary Caitlin Moran said, what else totters along looking like high heels? A pigs trotters.

The Eighth Doodle

Derren Brown. He boggles my mind. I saw a live show of his once, and ever since I have mourned that I am not a man who happens to be his type. Just my luck.

I had loads of fun with this picture, drew him a few times to figure out what worked. The wolf was sort of organic, I was writing out words associated with him such as 'he's not human!' and 'devil' (good things too of course, such as 'amazing' and 'love it') but it got me thinking about witchcraft and magic and views throughout history of those who seemed to have such powers. You were considered 'other-worldly', somehow connected with nature. Wolves are facinating, mysterious and dangerous creatures which I felt embodied these superstitious feelings quite nicely. I wanted him almost invisible, there yet not. (How deep, yeh)

The blue was a little by accident, but I liked it. Red and black is a little cliched, the cold blue seems to fit somehow. Hurrah!

The Fourth Doodle

So I have never done anything even remotely fashion orientated (including in my wardrobe), so this is very good practise! I did some research on catwalks and models and clothes (all stuff I am clueless on up to now) and developed this fairly usual pose for my own drawing. I then added some Ruthie crazy to it, keeping the lines ragged and free, and the colours wild and imperfect. I quite liked the end result, something in the 'norm' camp, but with my big messy stamp all over it. Bon!

The second Doodle

A quicky pen doodle, more on the fashion side of things. I really enjoy trying to draw the whole image without taking the pen off the paper, makes you think really hard about where you go! I like that even though fashion is a subject matter I've never really tried before, it still has my stamp all over it. It's cute, but not too cute.