Croquis

You saw my personal croquis in my post about rapper skirts. I'm quite excited about her because it gets me excited about new projects and even better, gets me to think about pre-planning of projects. See, I recently inventoried my stash along with ideas about what the fabric should become on a personal springboard account and I have so much fun seeing my fabric and what it'll become...you know, once I finish stage one of paperwork.

Making a croquis is surprisingly easy. There are few great tutorials hanging out about the internet but here's my take.

First, you should take a straight forward picture of yourself in your favorite underwear against a contrasting wall. Or you can take a page from Oona and take some sassy poses. I chose a pose in which my arms are not against my body because I know that in my sewing design I need to clearly delineate my hips which is harder to see with the arms right next to them.

I imported that photo into Inkscape and connected my graphics tablet (I use a Wacom Bamboo). Select the pencil tool (draw freehand lines tool) or F6 and trace fairly carefully around your figure. I tend to zoom in and do it in line bursts but if your hand is steadier do the whole thing at once.

Once your line is drawn, switch to the edit paths by nodes tool (2nd from the top) or F2 and hit ctrl-L to simplify your line. Nudge the line to match your silhouette as needed node by node.

Wha-la, your basic croquis.

I skipped my hair because it's long and not really a style so my croquis is bald. Other than that there's other marks that are really useful on a croquis. I mark my knees so that I can accurately gauge skirt lengths, elbow marks to gauge sleeve lengths. My bust got marked for necklines and high bust considerations and finally natural waist and what I call comfortable waist must all be marked for it to be truly functional.

Now there's a fully functional figure on which to draw any designs making sure that the garment proportions fit my unique ones. For the actual sewing plan, I usually mark all the measurements as well.

Other things to mark if wanted- collar bones and belly button.

Black Hares graphic design

My current ongoing graphic design project is for The Black Hares. I'm enjoying it primarily because I have a definite fondness for rabbits/hares and also I'm pretty much given free rein in my design (b&w being my main constraint).

Their logo was hand-drawn and then digitized. The text came first mainly because I wanted to break away from my usual font ruts to create a text that suits the chaotic pub environment they are usually in. In fact, I went to one of their sessions and sketched out my ideas right there at the beer-damp table. I wanted the hare to be in a dynamic position and decided that the spirals were infinitely appropriate to folk music and so the hare was born.

I've since modified the logo to form the website banner, facebook buttons, and cards.

A little less often, I make gig posters for them. I employ a stencil vibe showcasing their two instruments making it rather clear this is a band gig poster. The relevant information (location, time, date) is slightly buried within the graphic elements but still clear at all sizes-Goudy Bookletter is really a great serif font for that.