All White Everything

ok,  So by now Fashion week has done it's thing and we've gotten a little insight into what trends will emerge and some crazy things that we're never going to be able to pull off..

As I've mentioned before I just adore WHITE, it's becoming one of my favourite hues, paired with mom jeans or black pegged trousers it can look so elegant and chic. Illustrating fashion makes me really aware of the trends and has really inspired me to get some new products out, I have some new prints up in my store and I've introduced these lovely white pleather bags, which are perfect accessories for now onwards and the emerging love affair with white.  My new favourite purchase is this new white blazer from Zara, I got it second hand from Vinted for £20, it's like new, fitted and has little gold buttons, it's perfect to wear over a blouse or a formal dress. it's also lovely with a stripey top underneath, which makes it a little easier to wear in a casual fashion.
My blouse is River Island, and my bag, of course, is handmade by me! and is a bargain £12 from my own shop HERE or from my ETSY if you prefer to buy that way!  from Fashion week i've also noticed some amazing coats, (macs to be precise) Jason wu is an enormous inspiration for me, but sadly I can't say there is one designer I love year after year as my taste and theirs, change so reguarly, I just enjoy it all for what it is and usally love certain pieces styled within editorial shoots etc. 

Being as mucky as I am,  this whole white clothing phase is going to be super challenging, but i am determined to keep this pristine for as along as I can.... within reason... not making any promises. As i I write I am eating a chocolate Eclaire.

Akris, Jason Wu and Issey Miyake

Company Magazine, Natalie Lines Fashion Illustrations

Ok Ladies and Gents, the sad time has arrive, it's the last printed edition of Company magazine, and I am truly sad. As i've mentioned before I absolutely adored company for years now, they gave me my first illustration break, and really believed in me, I thought the magazine was going in an amazing direction with unique content and brilliant staff, i'm glad to hear they're continuing online though. These are the latest pieces i've done for them, and I am over whelmed at how lovely they look! The theme was bright bold colours with dramatic eyes and lips, It took a lot of work to get them here and i'm massivley proud with the result. I'm happy to say that you can buy one of these illustrations in A4 for £10 or A3 for £17 HERE. I'd love to know what you think of these drawings as they're a little different to my usual style!

One of the first looks which was due to be published (below) but i had to change it around to feature the pink and blue look instead, I really wanted to show this piece as i really did love the oranges and blues together, As i mentioned before, get a lovely print HERE and pop it on your wall. I think it's so striking with the burnt orange hues. 

 

Make sure you pick up the final copy, it's bursting with beautiful fashion tips, expertly designed and all over lovely! Have you also seen that you can win one of my newest Illustrations? Either Retweet, share on Facebook or Regram to place your entry to the giveaway, Exciting hey! 

Watercolour Lips

5/20 My newest illustration, created with a mixture of digital and traditional techniques. This was a really challenging piece, I couldn't quite get the teeth right, and It took a lot of tweaking before I was comfortable to release it, I was really glad it only took around 4.5 hours to complete though! What do you think of this? are you liking the new colours i'm using in my work? 

Keep your heels and your standards high

Good Morning everyone! Thank-you for the increase in new followers, if you're reading now, Hello! 

 I wanted to let you know about a little task i've set myself, in the name of creating new content, in a fast and interesting way, I'm creating new illustrations everyday from yesterday to the 22nd July (My Birthday) So i'm excited to show you my first drawing, I've been wanting to draw some stunning high heels on top of my favourite books for a while now, A print which would look beautiful in the room of any fashion and shoe lover, Chanel is an enormous inspiration of mine so I had to sneak that book in too.

Prints are available for a cheeky £10 so get it here

How to be a Fashion Illustrator. Using pressed flowers

Hi all! I hope you've been keeping up with my newest drawings and designs, I've been working super hard lately, the good news is i'm going on Holiday in August to Portugal (Faro, The Algarve)  so that will be a nice break! I get asked a lot about my drawing techniques and the way I illustrate, so I decided I'd put together a tutorial for everyone to see, I do things my own way and I experiment a lot until i'm satisfied, the beautiful thing about illustration is that there aren't many rules, It's finished when you say it is, and you can make it how you want to, so keep that in mind, follow what I do or just use a few techniques.

Ok, so first things first, I knew I wanted to decorate this image with pressed flowers (see my blog post on how to press flowers really quickly) So I needed to draw my model in a pose which was pretty relaxed, not too formal and a little interesting, I started my illustration digitally, drawing out all of her body, you may think i've wasted time drawing all of her out and then covering her with petals but you have a lot more freedom to move your flowers around all over the body if it's all completed, if I were to leave the torso and thighs unfinished I may have regretted it if I was going for an asymmetric style.
You wont believe how much of a difference shadows make, if you're into make-up think contouring, exaggerate shadows to emphasise the highlights, I always make the roots on the hair slightly darker and add shadows under the jaw, collar bones and wrists. Once i was happy with my design I printed it out and started to add the finishing touches!

 I collected some flowers, here I've used pale pink role petals, when pressed they had a beautiful colour to them, the little yellow ends had a more saturated colour and they pastel pink was very delicate, I also a had a lot of other flowers to choose from as I pressed a lot to see what kind of look I wanted, I overlaid petals, added pressed buttercups and went through a million different kinds of flower, some looked super dramatic and a little over-whelming, others looked very delicate and feminine like this one!

The Purple flowers were too bright for me, I felt like the suffocated my drawing a little, which is a shame as I adored the colours.

The possibilities are endless with flowers, i'd love to create a range of these to frame and sell, What do you think of the tutorial? I'll be adding a video shortly to show you the process! Thanks for reading x

HOW TO QUICKLY PRESS FLOWERS USING A MICROWAVE

Hi all! I wanted to show you how you can quickly press some beautiful flowers to use in any way, in this tutorial I'll be showing you the process in pictures, there's also a quick video below if you wanted to check that out. Firstly you need to collect your flowers, get a range of colours, shapes and sizes, so you can experiment and start to understand the process and what flowers you're the most pleased with. Once you're happy with the collection of flowers you can begin to arrange them to be pressed, Cut a small square of paper to go underneath your kitchen towel and start arranging, be conscious about the placing and open petals making sure they're flat and straight. 

Place another piece of kitchen roll over your flowers, then another piece of paper over that, you can then pop them into the the microwave with a microwavable weight ( I use a dish or a few flat plates) on top to being the pressing process. If small petals such as daises and little stems then 1/2 minutes should be enough, however you can check and continue heating if they're still a little soft. When completed the petals should be brittle and straight with no bend, the colours should also be slightly darker, If you want to press using traditional methods then the colours will be even deeper than these.

Here are a few examples of petals that i've pressed, as you can see the colours are a lot darker than the above images of when i first collected them. I loved the Yellow Gerbera (I think that's the correct flower, if not then please correct me! ) That particular flower took a lot of heating due to the centre and the petals being very long. I'd say buttercups and rose petals worked the best for me. 

 I really hope you love my video i've also uploaded, I've also created an illustration with flowers and pressed petals which you can see in my new blog post and video! I'd love to know if you like the new videos that i'm making and if you find them useful, etc!
Thanks again for reading x 

MAKE SURE YOU CHECK BACK TO SEE HOW MY

NEXT TUTORIAL WHERE I SHOW HOW YOU CAN USE

THESE PETALS IN FASHION ILLUSTRATIONS.

Debenhams and Gather.ly illustration

Well hello! It's been such a lovely springy day, fresh, bright and complete with some april showers! I've been working on a slightly secretive project. Organised by the amazing gather.ly I, along with a group of artists were given a line to interpret by Debenhams, and to create a piece from the quote. We were allowed to be so lose with the brief and really do what we wanted with it, i loved that aspect and decided to do a feminine flowery illustration.
Gather.ly works within the creative industries making sure no-one misses out on amazing opportunities to work with great brands, they're a new company but it's obvious they're going to make a big impact in the art world, and for great reason, i'm so glad they approached me and gave me this opportunity, so if you et a chance, check them out.

I'm not a fine artist, I played around a little with concept in college, but it's not something that is the driving force for my work, it sounds little vain to say but visuals are obviously very important for me. Chris Turner, a film-maker from London came to film and interview me about the piece and I explained the techniques and processes I go through to get to the final illustration, Now, I'm absolutely terrified to hear what I've said, i'm not the most eloquent of speakers and i'm not used to interviews/camera in my face, so I'll apologise now for the nonsense i've most likely have spoken. Having said that Chris's work is really great and i'm looking forward to seeing the film he's made about all of the artists. There will be an exhibition in London (Shoreditch) on the 14th May  at The Allpress Espresso  Roastery 58 Redchurch St, Shoreditch, Greater London showing everyone's final pieces, it's going to be relaxed and really informal,  I haven't exhibited a piece in so long, So that's exciting. It's open to everyone, so pop along and check out The Art Of Interpretation 
 

I get distracted easily......

You may know I use a lot of pink, I adore the colour, however I really wanted to get away from it and use some different tones, Black and white adds such class to an image which I really like within this, The model has more of a mature look so I didn't want to undermine it with pinks and pastel colours. The ink splashes were created traditionally, i then scanned them in and edited them in photoshop, along with the illustration. I really hope you like the final piece and seeing around my workspace. 

Want to know who else is exhibiting, well. We have Jean Jullien, Charlotte Posner,  Edward Carvalho Monaghan and Eleanor Rose

Kate Moss for Topshop. Vogue Cover

Hello! An Illustration update, if you're a new follower, you may have only seen some of my outfit updates which I really enjoy doing, but my day job is freelance Illustration. I've currently been working on Illustrating the gorgeous Kate Moss on the cover of Vogue wearing her Topshop collection. I've incorporated a few traditional techniques as real textures can make a big difference. There are also a few watercolour splashes as well as making the "Vogue" from glitter (i'm a bit obsessed) I love how it's not entirely neat and sparkles spill over into the illustration, As you can see it was originally gold, I started by drawing the logo out on an A3 sheet and filling the glitter in the spaces, some of it was super tricky, I refined areas in photoshop and changed around the colours until I was happy with a silvery blue tint to compliment the salmon backdrop.

It's been an absolute joy to draw this, it's really been a learning curve and my skills have definitely improved, I always aim to make my newest piece the best it can be, it doesn't always work that way but taking the time to be patient really has paid off. I've attached some early screen caps and ideas I went through to get to the final image.  I'm glad it's all done now and I can move on to current commissions, I'm hoping this illustration will show the glossy magazines what I can produce for them and hopefully complete some drawings to be featured in the future.

 I hope you like this illustration and let me know your thoughts and if you're also in love with the new collection!

 Nat x