Looking Forward and Backward

I've been doing a lot of studying about vector art lately. It requires a shift in thinking, as it's not about lathering paint but more defining areas and filling them with colour. Perhaps a good analogy is the difference between an painter and an airbrush artist who has to mask off areas before committing to colour. It's a perfect way of creating neat illustrations very quickly. With the added advantage that it's easy to make amendments even after you think you've finished. I'm working in Affinity Designer, which has burst onto the vector graphics scene and has become a serious contender to Adobe's Illustrator program. Especially since Adobe made the move to a subscription-based business model.

These images are part of a collection I'm creating about stylish women -mostly from the twentieth century, although probably not exclusively, as I'll venture into any epoch. I'm depicting the various clothes fashions but also trying to evoke the design styles of the time.  By the way, isn't it hard to discern much sartorial elegance around, in this age of 'anti-fit' jeans, skinny trousers, sportswear and hoodies? Most clothes seem to be shapeless. Take young men, for example, there has been a recent fashion for perfectly groomed hair and beards. Good idea. But the elegance never seems to extend below the neck.

So it's always an enjoyable pastime to look back at women. And I do that a lot.