This month, I wanted to continue to experiment and explore the mediums I use to do these monthly studies. I was a little stumped. I knew I wanted to review some basic skills of observational drawing that I felt rusty on– blocking shapes, basic shadows, reviewing proportions, and conveying movement– and I asked my fellow Verbatim member Teagan (who publishes the senior snapshot, among other articles) for recommendations of fashion shows.

Fashion shows are a great reference for figure drawing. They contain movement, interesting silhouettes, and clear posing. Among many factors, one that I wanted to focus on was conveying the movement and weight of clothing, something I developed nicely during my studies of J.C. Leyendecker’s works last year.

The show that Teagan recommended me was the Maison Margiela 2024 Spring Summer Artisanal Collection. It contains a multitude of unique pieces, figures, and poses that I deeply enjoyed drawing. Over the winter break, I bought two grey highlighters of opposing values, which I used alongside my grey watercolor brush pens. I found that these mediums combined allowed for a fantastic amount of control when drawing. I felt much more in my comfort zone blocking out shapes, shadows, and proportions with the highlighters while being able to get more detail with the brush pens.