Inspired By... British Vogue September 2016

It's again the 10th of the month and time for the "Inspired by" creation! But what is Inspired by? Every month awesome Marsha and I choose a subject to be inspired by. It can be for example an idea (link), a product (link), a person (link) or a book (link). Or anything! Then we make something inspired by that theme or a piece of art and share it with you and each other on the 10th of the month. You can browse the past "Inspired By" posts from here (link).

As you could read from the title, this time we went with a magazine. And not just any magazine but the latest issue of British Vogue. But why that? Well, we wanted to do something fashion inspired again at some point. Marsha had suggested Vogue already and somehow fall and turn of another fashion season seemed to be appropriate time to do it.

Then it came down to narrow which issue to use as the source. When I looked at the covers of the magazines available then in Finland, this one struck out. It had just been published on that day, which was a plus, but the strong colors, different textures and the pose of the model immediately caught my eye so I suggested that to Marsha. I think we both ended up buying the magazine on that very day even, as the cover was so striking.

If you want a peek inside the magazine, the website (link) has some articles and photos from the issue.

In a way, this Inspired By was the fastest one for me. Normally the topics give me a lot of inspiration, but it may be days before I have them edited and spring into action. What this magazine did, was immediate. I only had leafed through it when I already went for my pen and journal and started sketching and drawing. It has been quite a while since I last did just sketches so it felt really good just to draw.

I was just sitting at our sofa, drawing faces from the magazine. I had no expectations, no idea what to do with those, just wanted to draw. It was a great, liberating feeling! While I was drawing I then started to think what to do as the actual project. I never thought that the sketches would be it, but just wanted the use the inspiration I got immediately.

As Vogue is a fashion magazine, I thought to make a little fantasy dress. I had set my mind to it already when I started to think otherwise. I've already done fantasy dresses (for example this one, link), so why don't I use my actual, original inspiration as the base for the piece. Because the urge to draw was so strong, why don't I use that as my main thing and do a project connected to drawing. 

Even though I liked my sketches they were just that, sketches. The idea behind Inspired By is just to create something, it doesn't have to be finished, it doesn't have to be a full project, it can be anything, but still I felt that a bunch of sketches wasn't the way to go. 

So I chose one of the images that really inspired me, really hit me, so to say and started working. Now thinking back it would have been fun to do the project in a bigger scale so that I could have added the dress or part of the dress to it as well, but maybe another time, then. 

There it is, my project for this Inspired By. It's a bit humble looking, maybe, but it was so fun to draw, paint and use that original inspiration so I'm quite pleased. I started by sketching the face a little to my journal and then started gradually adding watercolors on top. The messy hair is done by blowing to the wet paint and thus getting the paint to move to all directions at once.

I have to say that I'm not sure why I chose to go with purple instead of flesh colors, It was in the spur of the moment type of thing. As the lady isn't painted with natural skin colors, she reminds me of Marc Chagall's work with the green faced men and flying women.  

This was a really fun project to do! Even though I set my mind as to do this project I was a bit hesitant as if it would be "enough". Like I said, Inspired By doesn't have any rules, but still I felt that I could have done more. But maybe that's more connected to the amount of inspiration the magazine gave me and less to the project itself. 

But now it's time to head over to Marsha's blog and see what she has in store for us! Thank you for visiting my blog today and have a great Saturday!

Materials: Prima Marketing, Design Memory Craft, Uni-Ball