Fashion Illustration

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Excellent Fashion Illustration and drawing skills is how the smart designer successfully communicates with her clients, patternmakers, suppliers and manufacturers alike. The ability to draw accurate and unique fashion illustration is a quintessential skill that a good designer develops over many years through excellent school instruction, a myriad of specialty art courses designed to develop retina and muscle memory and technique in all mediums used in the fashion industry, and of course, intense practice, practice, practice under the watchful and critical eye of a trained design instructor. Click on the links below to read about some of the courses we offer here at the academy.

COURSES OFFERED

Fashion Faces – Intermediate and advanced only

As any good designer knows, drawing faces on croquis when designing is crucial to keeping the attitude and mood in ones designs and lending credibility and professionalism to ones work. It is important to understand that fashion design must be believable in order to be credible and faces, along with the human form, are the most difficult things in art to draw from the imagination as they must always be completely balanced and have a natural fluidity.

Learning to illustrate the perfect fashion face is one of the very best things a young designer can accomplish. In fact, we recommend this course for ALL artists of all levels because it will intimately introduce the young artist to the subtle mathematics and perfect balance that is the human face and will come in handy when drawing portraiture and figure drawing.

It is interesting to note that what makes this course so AMAZING is the fact that students are taught to draw the human face WITHOUT the use of any kind of photo references whatsoever! Remember, all great design is original and comes straight from the imagination, so young artists and designer must learn how to draw without the use of photos to copy from, thereby developing the retina memory that they will need in a future design career.

By the end of the course students will have at least one frameable art piece, as well as having learned (through demonstration and practice):

Colour theory
Training the eye for colour, shape, line, texture, foreshortening, balance
How to blend and mix Prismacolor pencils & markers
How to draw the “perfect fashion face” from your imagination (NO references to be used!)
How to properly execute skin tones
How to draw hair in a variety of styles
Learn to understand the delicate balance and mathematically proportionate beauty that makes up the human face
Learn to draw front, ¾ and side views

All student art will be professionally exhibited at our Year End Fashion & Art Show Gala.

This course is offered at intermediate and advanced levels only.

Prerequisite courses include: Beginner or intermediate Fashion Illustration.

All art supplies are extra.

Fashion Illustration for Kids: Create Your Own Fashion Line! – grades 2 to 6

Fashion Illustration
Fashion Illustration in Watercolour – beginner, intermediate and advanced
Fashion Illustration in Prismacolor – beginner, intermediate and advanced

Fashion Illustration is one of our most popular programmes here at the Academy and is a staple in our year round curriculum. A common misconception in design is that of to become a good fashion designer, one simply has to be good at sewing…those people are only half right. Illustration plays a MAJOR role in the conceptual process of design. If you cannot draw, you cannot design. How will you pattern draft? How will you properly convey your visions to those who will help you bring your ideas to life? Illustration is literally half the work of a designer! Truly great fashion illustration is an art unto itself and it takes years to develop your own personal and unique style, but we can definitely get you started in the right direction! In this programme you will learn how to render the perfect fashion figure, draw different fabrics in detail, complete your own fashion collections from concept work (mood boards), to preliminary drafts, to final layouts. Once completed, you can even bring your creations to life in patternmaking and sewing!

By the end of the programme students will have a variety of finished Look Books, fashion portfolios, and frameable art pieces, as well as having learned (through demonstration and application):

Colour theory
Training the eye for colour
Basic fundamentals of line, shape and balance and how they relate to fashion
How to work in watercolour for design
How to work in Prisma Marker for design
How to work in Prisma Pencil for design
How to choose fabric swatches for a cohesive, professional collection
How to combine mediums for successful design
How to draw fashion figures in various poses
Balance lines and foreshortening in croquis drawing
Fashion faces and hair and how they relate to fashion
Accessory design and its’ importance in fashion illustration
How to incorporate movement and fluidity in your designs
How to use prisma markers
How to use prisma pencils
How to emulate fabric swatches & textures
The fundamentals of creating a fashion collection
How to draw a cohesive fashion line
How to illustrate a fashion layout and the importance of balance and perspective
How to professionally brand yourself
How to draw men’s wear, children’s wear, ladies wear, historically inspired design, costume and more!
How to take an idea from concept to collection to completion, and much, much, more!

All art will be professionally exhibited at our Year End Fashion & Art Show Gala.

Our fashion illustration programme is offered year round, at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels.

No prerequisite courses are required.

All art supplies are extra.

Show less

Textile Design

Textile Design is one of our newest programmes and is UNIQUE to the HC Academy, as we are the only fashion and/or art school in York Region that offers it. It has fast become one of our most popular programmes ever taught here. Not only is this a multi-medium art course (water colour, prisma pencil, marker, acrylic, any more) but also, nowhere else can students actually design the prints for their fabrics and have them professionally printed, ready to sew with. From a university portfolio standpoint, our textile design course has helped many past students take their portfolios from good to ABSOLUTELY AWESOME! Remember, universities are looking for creativity and originality and this course delivers both with a huge bang!

Ever wonder how those amazing fabric prints you see on the New York, Rome and Paris runways are created? Look no further, we have your answer! In this course, students will learn the whole process from start to finish by conceptualizing and designing their very own printed textile collection! Every fabric print starts as an original art piece and from there becomes wool, silk, linen, cotton, hemp, even organic fabric. From concept, to paper, to computer, to fabric, you’ll have a blast designing your own TRULY one-of-a-kind textile collection!

By the end of this course students will have several frameable art pieces, as well as their own custom designed fabric collection, ready for printing. In addition to this, students will have learned:

The proper development and application of and significance of professional mood boards
Colour theory and its’ application to textile design
Training the eye for colour
Tools for creating textiles in the students’ chosen mediums
Watercolour paint technique
Prisma pencil technique
How to create texture effects, marbled effects, and much more
How pattern and print affect the design process using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator
How to manipulate your final art piece to create several different prints all from the same art piece!

All art work and finished garments made from fabrics designed in this course will be professionally exhibited and modelled at our Year End Fashion & Art Show Gala.

This course is offered year-round, at intermediate and advanced levels only.

Prerequisite courses include: intermediate or advanced Fashion Illustration, Beginner Sewing

All art supplies are extra.

Show less

COURSE AVAILABILITY