Fashion Drawing to Digital

These charcoal contour drawings I drew at Academy of Art University’s 625 Polk Street location above Civic Center in San Francisco. It’s a gorgeous German Renaissance style piece of architecture built in 1912. Originally a German American social hall and cultural center, it was renamed California Hall, a concert hall complete with a ballroom. Eventually it became California Culinary Academy and is currently used by AAU since 2011. The studio must have been the ballroom with a palatially massive communal interior space with high ornately ceilings. Four fashion drawing classes simultaneously shared the space with four different platforms used for still life and live models, surrounded by drawing horses and easels.

As an ESL Support Teacher and drawing enthusiast, I had the pleasure of drawing professional nudes alongside fashion drawing students, learning the tools of the trade while producing study guides and lesson reviews. When the model was on break, student volunteered to model for extra credit. These drawings are of some of my ESL students. A drawing teacher, observing my work, once asked me why I wasn’t teaching the class. My university had a very small studio department and I wasn’t drawn to all of the professor’s teaching approaches, so I became English major and an art enthusiast. With my Masters in Media Studies in Design, I currently teach Digital Techniques. I seek to employ these tools and techniques towards digital drawing, combining traditional dry media such as charcoal, pencil, brush pens, and markers with digital tools using Wacom.