Liz Gilbert has a wonderful TED Talk about creativity, in which she compares the curiosity driven life to a hummingbird that flits from flower to flower. I love that image and I wholeheartedly embrace a life driven by curiosity.
Liz says, “The trick is to just follow your small moments of curiosity. It doesn’t take a massive effort. Just turn your head an inch. Pause for a instant. Respond to what has caught your attention. Look into it a bit. Is there something there for you? A piece of information?”
My attention has been caught recently by fashion design. Inspiration has planted ideas, fully formed, into my head. Curiosity compels me to follow this path for a bit, to see how to get from where I am, in my abilities, to actually wearing one of the designs I have imagined.
This is what I love about living the creative life…the Divine never leaves me floundering. This new path of creativity has appeared for me to explore, by way of inspired invitation, and immediately what I need next shows up.
During my last two visits to Barnes & Noble, I’ve found beginner books on fashion design. One was even deeply discounted. I didn’t go into the bookstore looking for these books. I was browsing. One of the books caught my attention, caused me to turn my head an inch, made me pause. And Greg found the other one and led me to it, literally.
Tonight I spent time leafing through the pages, captivated…and curious…about this wonderful new world of fashion design. The books work well together. Fashion Design Studio is full of figures to sketch designs on and lessons on drawing techniques. A part of me wants to jump right to those figures and draw, in an attempt to create the clothes that I can see in my mind.
That will be wildly fun for me.
However, I don’t want to rush down this path. I am willing to meander, pause, respond. Looking through The Secrets of Fashion Drawing, I found pages and pages of foundational information on basic skills, technical terms, color and drawing. This is where I need to start…at the beginning, learning as I go, spending a bit of time seeing what is here for me.
Tight away, I see how important it is to have a designer sketchbook, separate from my art sketchbook. The authors of The Secrets of Fashion Drawing wrote, “…a sketchbook is comparable to a ship’s logbook; it is the record of a creative journey where the destination is unknown, the diary of an adventure.” That is so true and perfect for me that I will be purchasing a sketchbook just for capturing design ideas, drawings and notes.
I ended my night of learning by doing an exercise from The Secrets of Fashion Drawing, as a way to refine my eye and hone my drawing skills. The instructions were to take a garment from my closet, leaving it on the hanger, and draw it.
I chose a black pullover with a stand up collar, long sleeves and side pockets with white piping. One tip that I immediately found helpful was to fold my paper in half, to better create a symmetrical image.
This was a quick, and fun, exercise. I gathered info, instructions and techniques and put them into practice.
I don’t know where this fashion design journey is going. I only know I am curious enough to take the time to find out.
Liz finishes the quote above with these words:
“For me, a lifetime devoted to creativity is nothing but a scavenger hunt — where each successive clue is another tiny little hit of curiosity. Pick each one up, unfold it, see where it leads you next.”
That’s exactly what I am doing here. I’m picking up each clue, unfolding it, and seeing where it leads me next.
If you would enjoy learning more about fashion design, check out these two books:
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