FASHION ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY: TWO PENCIL STUDIES OF A MODEL

Hello! Time for another Friday Fashion Illustration.  Today I'll share with you two pencils drawings I made using a photograph of a beautiful curvy model Ivana Miliošević as a reference. I drew two pencil illustrations of her. One illustration was a pencil portrait practice and the other illustration was a body study. I made these two illustrations just for practice, but I decided to share them because I documented the WIP (work in process) with photographs and I know some of you find it interesting. I used a photograph from a catalogue as a reference (the name of the photographer wasn't listed in the magazine, or at any rate I couldn't find it, perhaps because it was a collage of photographs that was printed on that page in that magazine). Scroll down to read about my art process. On the very bottom of the page you will be able to read an article with some of my thoughts on body positivity (if that sort of thing interests you). 

PENCIL SKETCH- THE PROCESS

Bellow you can see my sketching process. I like using circles to give me a sense of proportions. Some artists use other geometrical shapes, but for me circles are often the best thing to use. 

TURNING A PENCILSKETCH INTO A DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION - I experimented a bit colouring this pencil sketch with Paint 3D but I'm not sure what I was doing because I'm not very knowledgeable about digital art. I find it uncanny how real the face looks once coloured this way (I mean digitally). You knows maybe some day I'll learn more about digital art. 

COLOURED PENCIL SKETCH PRACTICE- Bellow is a fashion illustration done with coloured pencils. As you can see, I was definitely out of practice when I drew this one, the blending of my coloured pencils is terrible and my proportions aren't perfect either. I definitely need to work more on my coloured pencils skills. 

TIME FOR WRITING- MY DIVIDED OPINION ON BODY POSITIVITY AND THE WEIGHT TALK

Naturally, I find women of all sizes inspirational and beautiful. I think most people who are into art do. There is something about appreciating or doing art that makes you appreciate the human form as such. Art can be wonderful in that it often inspired a very natural attitude towards the body. I can honestly say that I'm inspired by women of all sizes. However, that might not be the case for all. Some are more inspired by one type, some by other. I don't see any point in forcing anything down anyone's throat as some people in the body positivity community seem to do. People will always have different tastes.  Loving yourself doesn't mean forcing everyone to find your attractive. If you ask me, looking for that kind of validation in others is always pointless, no matter how you look at it. 

I feel there are a few kinds of worrying behaviour patterns connected to body positivity, but before I speak of that I think we can all agree that science has proven that excess weight is linked to a series of medical problem. Obesity takes lives and cripples the modern medical system. Now, back to the subject. I feel there is an alarming number of people who body shame others. There are definitely people who use 'health talk' as an excuse to body shame those with excess weight. However, there are also those who take 'fat acceptance' too far and accuse every doctor a fat-phobic. Those who us body positivity as an excuse to promote harmful behaviour. Those who preach body positivity but only see their body type as being 'real'. Both behaviour patterns are dangerous. 

Internet is full of people complaining that their GP offended them by telling them to loose weight- when it's literally in the doctor's job description. I can understand when people get annoyed by others making comments about their weight. Women are more targeted more in this sense. I personally think that it is always unpolite to comment on other people's weight except perhaps when we're talking with a close friend who wants our opinion. Nevertheless, I cannot understand people being annoyed with their doctors talking with them about their weight because the doctors are just doing their job. There must be limits to political correctness. PC talk cannot and mustn't be a substitute for using our head.  We have to let health professionals working in the medical system to voice their opinions freely without being made to walk on eggshells all the time. I'm not saying that every doctor on the planet is kind, but most of them do know what they are talking about and are better informed than general public.

Another thing that troubles me with the whole 'weight' situation is that people are becoming increasingly polarized, always fighting about the question of weight, especially so when it comes to women. There is so much obsession and negative comments made about female bodies on every day level and it doesn't seem normal to me anymore. The curious thing is that you even have those kind of 'body shaming' people in all kinds of 'accepting communities' and many of these harmful comments seem to come from women. It has become very common to body shame thin people, something that isn't spoken about. Being skinny is a state both despised and coveted. Another issue is that healthy weight is becoming a rarity. Often I can see examples of women with healthy weight being accused of being unrealistic and not what 'real women' look like. As if you need to be overweight to be a real woman. That kind of talk has its dangers as well. Every size is beautiful but not every size is healthy. If you really want to love your body, you should give it what it really needs, not what you think it needs. We all equally subject to laws of physics, biology and chemistry. The laws of science won't stop existing because someone doesn't like them or find them politically correct. I  think it is important to see bodies as beautiful no matter what state it might be in- but at the same time we need to be aware that in the majority of cases, we are the ones responsible for our weight. 

I think it is wonderful that we have full size/ plus size/ curvy models, whatever you want to call them. However, most of them are not really alternative models of beauty- as they are sometimes presented. Most of them are attractive young girls with perfectly symmetrical faces. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Symmetrical faces are perhaps easier to photograph and at any rate are often perceived as more beautiful. There's really no fighting that and yet sometimes people are attracted to unique facial features. I don't think we'll ever see a vast majority of 'ordinary-looking' models as by definition they should stand out somehow. I mean it is great there are many different kind of models today and that mature models are becoming more frequent. However,  modelling as a profession is subject to changes so that is not that surprising.  Generally speaking, I think people overthink the whole modelling thing. It is not bad influence to have people of different sizes modelling. There is a market for all kinds of models and influencers.  The only problematic thing is when some people try to pass of the claim that you can be morbidly obese and healthy- because no doctor would agree with that. 

I'm not against plus plus plus size models either. I also think there is no point in pretending that most of the Western world doesn't come in larger sizes now. One of the things that attracted me to reading fashion blogs in the first place (all those years ago) is because you could see (and still can) diversity. There are all kinds of bodies in fashion blogging and in that sense it is a great community. Curvy fashion blogs are a great idea if you ask me. We should encourage everyone to have fun with style and fashion. A person of any size can be a fashion icon nowadays- and that's wonderful.  Moreover, people will always need clothes and the way clothes will be made will always depend on the market. Nothing wrong with that. A good designer or a tailor should always know how to design for every size.

You know when that whole body positive movement happened, I was very enthusiastic about it but soon I was disappointed with the lack of diversity in it. In particular, I don't support those individuals in the 'body positive' movement who accuse all doctors and scientists of being fat phobic or those claiming that someone who is clearly morbidly obese is perfectly healthy. You can perhaps be overweight and healthy but nobody is morbidly obese and healthy because being obese is a medical condition. As a chronically ill person myself, I sometimes feel like shouting: 'Don't throw away your health, you don't know what it is like being ill!'. While I fully support everyone accepting their body, I also think that as a  society we need to take more responsibility for our health and our bodies. It is nice that people are finding plus size role models to look to or relate to (within any kind of movements), but at the end of the day, we need to accept responsibility for our health. We also have to let health professionals do their job and let them speak of the topics they need to talk about. Truly caring about somebody includes caring about their health (and weight too if that gets into the way of health).

My conclusion would be that we should respect everyone's  journey. Live and let other live. Lot of people struggle with weight nowadays. There is no doubt in my mind that maintaining a healthy weight is important for our overall health. Excess weight (or not weighting enough) are conditions potentially very dangerous for our health. That being said, obviously weight shouldn't be our only measure as a person. Fortunately, we are more than just our bodies. We're complex creatures. Making someone feel like they are less then they are because of how much they weigh is ridiculous and plain mean.  At the same time, weight isn't a topic that should always be avoided.  If your loved one is struggling with weight and you're worried about them, naturally you will want to talk with them, to support and help them. Making unsolicited comments about everyone's weight is rude, but there are contexts where talk about weight not makes sense, but it can mean we care. The whole 'weight' talk  is not something that should be avoided at all costs, but there is a time and a place for it.