The thought of drawing live at an event Is enough to scare even the most experienced fashion illustrators, put on top of that having an audience looking over you whilst you sketch and there’s already enough sweat in most illustrators palms that you won’t exactly be needing a water pot to be mixing your paints in…
I’m Scott W Mason a London based Fashion Illustrator, I’ve been illustrating live at events for the last 7 years and have sketched lived for clients such as Apple, Selfridges, Armani, Ted Baker, Reiss, The OUTNET and Axel Arigato. Illustrating live is an amazing skill to have in your arsenal especially as a fashion illustrator, it opens up your potential client work to include drawing live at runway shows, illustrating portraits at client parties or sketching outfits at clothing brands in store events. It’s an extremely daunting idea, to not only sketch quick but also as drawing intrigues even the most creatively repellent person you will quickly gain a sizeable audience at events amazed at what you’re creating in front of their eyes. So after a few years of illustrating live at events I’ve pieced together 5 bits of advice that I wish I had known when I first began!
Practise Poses
Something that saves a lot of time whilst sketching portraits and people live is to already have a bank of 3 or 4 poses you know perfectly that you can just toggle between. Events are so fast paced that you don’t have the luxury of toying around with poses and angles and compositions to show off the customers garment in the best way. Practise 4 poses that are universal fashion illustrations and crowd pleasers; hand on hip, runway walk, strong stance and a side walking pose and that alleviates the stress of having to think of a pose or worry about proportions as you can mentally use that template and just worry about capturing elements of the individual you’re sketching.
Watercolour is King
I normally use acrylics for my fashion illustrations but I adapt my style when doing live events and cannot over preach the necessity that is using watercolour! I’ve tried acrylics at events before and although artistically I prefer the result it’s not sustainable to keep your palette wet for the entire event, you have to continuously re-mix the colours you’re using and it can take 10-15 minutes to dry which is awkward for the customers to wait around for. So watercolour is one of the best medias for quick event work, to be blunt it is the prettiest medium with the least amount of effort, it dries incredibly quick and it’s the easiest paint to carry and to mix colours with. You can also reuse dried palettes and premixed skin tones that you can just wet when needed are a life saver! It’s definitely worth experimenting with, because although we’d all like to use our traditional medias, we can’t rock up to a drawing event that’s expecting a portrait every 5 minutes with oil paints, an easel and canvases, you have to adapt!
Honing In Is Key
Portraits traditionally take a lot of time, reworking endlessly to capture that likeness juuuust right… we don’t have that luxury. Illustrated event work is quick paced and we don’t have time to study the intricacies of our sitters face and body language. As above where I mentioned having a small bank of poses to automatically pull from, you need to build from that framework and take the 3 most instant characteristics of the sitter, as fashion illustrators the outfit is easy to capture and that will straight away make the sitter see themselves in the illustration. What you can do on top of this is take their key characteristics and make sure to include them so they have a reference point to view themselves. If a sitter has bright coloured hair, glasses and bright red lipstick, it’s easy to capture those factors so they see themselves in the final sketch. It’s harder when you get people that aren’t so bold, if someone just rocks up with a buzzcut, t-shirt and jeans the characteristics aren’t so unique. I try to include in each sketch a slightly more acute detail, if the sitter is wearing specific jewellery, or a particular watch or their ears have a few hoops. Little details like that more often than not get pointed out excitedly by the sitter once they see the final result ‘oh! you caught my necklace!’ or ‘wow you included by engagement ring’ and really helps the illustration become even more personal and tailored to them.
Be Realistic!
The key to good live event illustrations is to know what’s achievable. You have to know to pace yourself and know what you can achieve in the timeframe. On average at popular events you’re creating a finished piece every 5-10 minutes. You need to know for sure what you can achieve in 5 minutes, It can be easy to get caught up in the moment, someone walks in with the most amazing floral dress, a head to toe intricate floral arrangement, and you daydream of capturing each flower individually and making a beautiful masterpiece then you’ll quickly get a sizeable queue of impatient customers whilst you’re busy painting your 56th daisy. As fashion illustrators we tend to know instinctively how to capture clothes with as few strokes and details as possible, make sure to get that base down first so you have a core to work from and then build on top of that with extra details until you’ve ‘hit time’. It’s generally much better to hand someone a completed illustration with fewer intricate details than hand someone a piece of paper with an outline of a head and 4 beautifully rendered flowers.
Pace and Don’t Overexert Yourself
I’m always making this mistake but I’m learning! At busy events I hate letting people down so I’ll be busy with peoples portraits and customers will come up wanting one done, so I think I’m being an organised king and I’ll take a photo of them and quickly mentally work out how long it will take me to finish the current queue. I’ll then create their sketch and tell them they can go browse the shop and come back in 20 minutes. Before you know it you’ve got a colossal queue of people in front of you and another 15 photos saved in your phone to draw and your perfectly engineered system just crumbles. The key thing is to be realistic with people, it’s always tempting to shave off some time when telling people how long you’re going to be, but if each time someone asks how long it will be and you reply 10 minutes when it’s really 15 you’re quickly going to have to work twice as quick to catch up or end up with a huge backlog at the end of the event and customers peering over you waiting to receive their sketch and get out.
Keep reading:
How I Got My First Ever Clients As A Fashion Illustrator
How I Got An Agent As A Fashion Illustrator Plus Tips On Getting An Illustration Agent
