"LA MODA" FASHION DESIGN & ILLUSTRATION

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

2007-06-26T22:25:00.000-04:00

We have come to the last entry of this year for LA MODA FASHION CLUB, (sniff, sniff) This was one of my best and funnest experiences ever! I came in not really knowing anything about fashion and ended up having a lot of respect for the artform, and all the creativity it takes to actually create a unique design.

I had promised everyone that we would make shirts and so we did. I got a couple of spray-paint cans and the week before the kids had designed stencils to put over their shirts. I had some technical glitches, and the wind was really blowing outside but in the end great shirts were made:

And with that this ends this blog. I'd like to give a BIG shout out to all my students this year who dedicated their time, patience, and creativity to making some fantastic work. I hope to have been and inspiration to them, as they certainly were to me. ALSO a big "THANX", to Julie who class we used all year, and her insights in the fashion world made things go a whole lot smoother.

I send my peace and love, to all who view these works.!!! HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!!!

THE BIG PICTURE...

2007-06-26T22:08:00.000-04:00

So here it is I finally got these pics downloaded, and now I can share them with all of you. We finished our big project which was creating a subway train with people, graffitti, trippy colors, and even some animals! CHECK IT OUT!

Here's what it looked like hung up:

We used color string to attach all 5 parts together. It took a while but it was definetly worth it. The kids did an AMAZING job!!!

BEEN A WHILE...

2007-05-06T22:21:00.000-04:00

Yes it's been some time but I have had recent computer probs and have been busy myself with outside projects for some publishers but we have been extremely busy in class!!! Can you guess what we are working on?

THE MORE THE MERRIER...

2007-03-05T20:10:00.000-05:00

Once again this week LA MODA had some new student's come and join us and We are finally planning a fieldtrip for next week YEAH!!!

Last week we are preping for a large project I have in mind. So I had the kids begin to work with faces. We had previously worked with the face but this time I wanted them to have a partial picture of someone's face and then have them finish the rest using only their imagination. We revised ideas of proportion and how each face has specific shapes and contours. Some found it a bit difficult but it is a great exercise in drawing faces.

Above image by Ashley P.

ALSO: One of my new student's the very talented Carly Q. had shown me this great colabo piece she did with Ashley P. from her sketchbook!!! Take a LOOK!

This was Carly's Ad from the previous week's assignment. GREAT JOB!!!

This week: FIGURE DRAWING!!! (Da Da Dum)

ADVERTISING in FASHION

2007-02-26T16:31:00.000-05:00

HELLO AGAIN,

I was very happy in welcoming some old and some new student's to LA MODA! One of the last classes I had last semester was about fashion ad design. I decided to continue this topic and have the students create their own fashion ad for their own line. The students used prexisting images from online and began to create their ads. These two below were the ones finished during class:

This one is by new student Ashley P. I really enjoy it's overall funky feel!

Amanda Ramos worked on this one and she did a great job having alot of fun with the models!

THIS WEEK: We will start a bigger project creating original apparel designs and unique ads for them.

ALSO: check out this cool site FASHION INDIE

FASHION O MY FASHION...

2007-02-13T21:14:00.000-05:00

FASHION.

Fashion is and will be a natural part of any society. It should then reflect what is happening in that society. Someone asked me last week concerning my interest in the fashion world, and asked if my fashion-knowledge has grown.

I guess it has. I realize fashion gets a bad rep sometimes, as a PROGRAMMED thing-------( Meaning, YOU think YOU should wear what a MAGAZINE tells YOU to wear instead of what YOU want to wear. ) That bad rep.

One company , EDUN, a new high-fashion line is trying to make that view of fashion "image" a little brighter & broader. (They sure love hugging African kids they do!) One of Edun's founders is the wife of U2 frontman, Bono. If you watch there videos --------LOOK UP-------- you get a diffrent vibe from them, like they're very "earthy" or something.

Anyways long story short... YOU folks should put the same sentement into your work, especially in LA MODA!!!

I actually like the fact that the silkscreening is done in PERU!!!!!

OH....

happy valen-whines day.

A Poster Designed...

2007-01-23T09:30:00.000-05:00

So last week I began to cover an area that is today a very modern aspect of the fashion world---POSTERS!!!

As you can see above these are some "rough" ideas for the fashion club posters. Last week the ladies were helping me out to think about the typeface of the font and it's composition.

There is a rich history to poster design. From the earliest attempts to create a print for mass consumption down to new ways of creating the same idea for mass communcation:

If we look at ancient ruins, such as this one from a Balinese Temple Altar, what meanings or ideas is it communicating? This is where great poster design comes from. Posters is a way of communicating an idea, by visual means, whether through a graphic, photo, writing, etc, etc.

Here again another ancient piece but look at how well the whole image works.

Effective poster design is to have IMMEDIATE ATTENTION! Meaning if your walking by casually, listening to some dope beats on your iPod, and there's all these people walking around every which way, and suddenly you see an image that grabs & HOLDS your attention!

WOULD THIS HOLD YOUR ATTENTION?

This poster is from the Russian Avante-Garde period of the 20th Century (1910-1934).

Fashion posters came from a long line of artists that inspired designers to rethink their approach of poster design, artists like
Gustav Klimt, Alphonse Mucha, and the grandaddy of Fashion Poster design Toulouse-Lautrec.

Notice any similarities?

ABOVE: Vintage Italian Poster

Posters became incredibly intelligent ways of expressing more then just ideas, but also to reflect aspects of society. And as we know all societies have a discernable amount of fashion sense:

Modern Fashion Posters come in many "flavors", and articulate many ideas from the past.

What will future socities say about our ideas and meanings? Hopefully they will see that designers of today were trying to still employ ideas about our past and how to lead it into the far far future...

A Question...

2006-12-28T21:20:00.000-05:00

1. Click on this image.

2. Look at it.

3. Then (IN COMPLETE SENTENCES) write what you think about this image. Ask questions like:

A. DO YOU LIKE THIS IMAGE?

B. WHY DO YOU LIKE or NOT LIKE THIS IMAGE?

C. WHAT DOES IT MAKE YOU THINK ABOUT?

D. HOW DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL?

If you can think about more questions do so like maybe:

a. WHAT YEAR WAS THIS MADE?
b. DOES SHE HAVE FASHION SENSE?

So we will go over this in the first class next week....

Oh yeah...

**********=======%%%%%%%!!!!HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!%%%%%%%=======************

Well, well...

2006-12-18T22:47:00.000-05:00

Seems like the snow has fallen early in the Fashion Club because they're have been a lot of FLAKES, around here!!! Don't get me wrong, the loyal few have made great efforts to show up but some of you others get my WAG of the FINGER!!!

I guess I gave you folks too much homework, but I do have some images to share of work being done in some sketchbooks, and also work done in Julie's class!!!

These two pieces above are from these student's sketchbooks. I gave them out not too long ago and saw some amazing stuff, yet I have not been able to take pics cause they haven't shown up. Still great job ladies, and kudos on using the limited palette with the COLOR WHEEL!!!

These are from a series in Julie's class. The student's cut out images on LINOLEUM blocks and they made these colorful patterns. There is also a series is based on cities, one above is a representation of MIAMI-can you tell which one?!!!?

THIS WEEK: !!!Holiday Bash!!! BYOJ

COLOR O' COLOR...

2006-12-04T13:32:00.000-05:00

HELLO ALL,

Long time no see, but there will definetly be some new and AMAZING work to put up here this coming week since the past weeks have been a bit tumultous. We are learning about color now ladies and I have a few links to have you check out:

The first is a email newsletter that you can sign up for for FREE. It's called JC REPORT. This is a bi-monthly newsletter that let's you in on the goods about current trends in the fashion world....oooh la la.

And I also found this lil' bitty thing pretty cool. You ladies have an assignment due this week on labeling colors from fashion ads in your sketchbooks. Well here is a link that you might find useful. It's for a POLYESTER COLOR CHART. It not only gives you the color name but also the Pantone number, which is used a lot in reference to "color match" printed colors of items when entering the production stage.

There is a lot more to color then just markers, color pencils, and crayons. Color is a system of information with many, many, many ways to be used by companies, designers, and artists.

PANTONE color matching is just one way to make use of color, for such people as designers (fashion, product, digital). If you are involved in print design for books, comics, novels, etc you might be more interested in 4-Color Process of Color or, PROCESS COLOR. ABOVE ARE TWO EXAMPLES OF THIS PROCESS!!

There is so much more to cover but for now this will do. Below is a very iconic image of Process Color. Copy this image with the colors and all in your sketchbook and bring it in this WED! Then we'll see who reads the blog...

FACIAL PROPORTION

2006-11-15T10:36:00.000-05:00

Today we will be covering facial proportion, talk about color and it's effects, and also have a group critique on your HOMEWORK!!! (that's right --I didn't forget.)

THIS IMAGE AT THE TOP IS THE PERFECT PROPORTIONAL FACE---suposedly.

Read more about it HERE...

FASHIONABLY COOL ARTISTS TO CHECK OUT!!!

2006-11-07T09:38:00.000-05:00

HEY ALL,
Hope you are having a nice day off. Tommorow we will be continuing our lesson on VALUES . But we are also going to begin to get into some COLOR THEORY . I have provided some links I would like you folks to check out before doing so.

I would also like to give you some links to some really great art that yall should definetly know about.

The image at the top is from a British illustrator Lizzie Finn . She uses the same techniques you guys are learning with Julie and employs them in really unique ways.

Here's a great illustration by Melinda Beck, who lives and works right here in NYC.I enjoy her use of patterns in this series of her illustration work.

This image is by Alfons (aka Alphonse) Mucha. He was a Czech artist, and was one of the defining artist of the Art Nouveau style.

This is a classic painting by a great master of the figure Gustav Klimt, called "The Kiss".He was also a fellow artist of the Art Nouveau movement of the early 20th Century.

Please check out these links and read up on thse artists cause I will have questions ready for you guys tommorow. YES--there will be prizes. BUT don't read these links just for a prize---do it for yourself---a brain is a terrible thing to waist or however that saying goes. Also I believe you guys will have some NEW supplies for tommorow--YEAH!!!

QUITE POSSIBLY THE HALLOWEEN PARADE OF 2013...

2006-10-25T20:01:00.000-04:00

I definetly see the future of fashion design RIGHT HERE before my eyes & before your's as well--this is the HALLOWEEN installment of La Moda's blog!!! Today the designers were put up with a tough challenge: Design matching couples Halloween costumes. (I felt with two weeks of anatomy lessons down we needed a brake.)
They were to do 1 design on top of a manequin template, and the 2nd without the template. Plus we would be working on bringing back color. Let's look at the results:
(--Top design by Taymar Henson-look at those amazing details! Reminds me of Todd McFarlane's Spawn --)

We'll start by looking at another beautiful design by Jennifer Alarcon. I see this fit for the goth king and queen. She sees the black in felt and the red patterns in leather--WOW...

Here we see a take on the superhero theme, expanded for couples by Adia.I really love how it feels very urban yet cartoony at the same time! Pay attention now real closely to how our Halloween line jumps into the Surreal...

Diana Benicio's take on the superhero theme lies somewhere in the realm of Henry Darger or possibly Marcel Dzama. Take a look at those strong lines...

I hope you've been noticing why these costumes are "matching" costumnes!? See they have all had matching points to them such as in Taymar's design with the chains, & the Visigoth-from-Haddes look, and Diana's with the simplicity of the outfit and colors.
These two above enter into a different fashionably weird Halloween line. The one on the left is almost like Paper Rad meets Halloween. The design of the right possibly for a lover of Ben Shahn, I mean it would really work.

&&&

For the ultimate trip of our line---DADA meets Halloween!!! See didn't I tell you the future of design is HERE. Imagine the possibilities of such designs---Great Job!!!

NEXT WEEK: LIGHT & SHADOWS... OF THE MYSTERIOUS KIND

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT...

2006-10-18T20:54:00.000-04:00

YES...another great class! We continued today with our HUMAN ANATOMY lesson focusing on the SKELETAL SYSYTEM. There are some really excellent and strong drawers in the class take a look:

These drawings were done by Camelle Francois & Jeniffer Alarcon, the one on top by Adia Jones

And here are some pics of other projects being made in class with Julie. SO COLORFUL!!!

GREAT WORK EVRYONE!!! ( As I was making my way home on the train some guy got on and said out loud, " I'm gonna read yall two poems---and then I want everyone on this train to give me $25!!!" LOL ) just sharing...

!!!THE ALL NEW "LA MODA" FASHION DESIGN/ILLUSTRATION BLOG!!!

2006-10-17T20:47:00.000-04:00

Hello all,

I am pleased to announce the start of this new blog to showcase the fantastic work of students in New Design High School " La Moda" Fashion Design/Illustration Club. I am Gene Romero (the teacher) and am really excited about what new projects we will be working on. There is about 13-15 kids in this club which just started four weeks ago.

The fashion club runs Tuesdays and Wednesdays afterschool. Tuesdays the students work with another awesome teacher Julie who is a professional fashion designer, and shows students the basics of using fabrics, stitching, and helping them to create original designs. I teach on Wed's and introduce them to the illustration aspect of fashion design. Subjects we will get into are: Gesture, Anatomy, Textures, Light & Shadow, Color Theory etc, etc.

This week will be continuing our focus on the HUMAN FIGURE, specifically hitting upon key points of the body such as:

-HEAD
-SHOULDERS
-TORSO & WAIST
-BASELINE (feet)

We will also begin to work on our SKELETAL ANATOMY: