Dress Up and Draw!
My first workshop was great fun!
Posing for a selfie with models and participants in the background.
On Friday night I had enormous fun running my first Fashion Illustration workshop, Dress Up and Draw. The evening was hosted by Alison Carpenter from Art For Life and our venue was the beautiful Christ Church Hall, Purley.
We had 16 enthusiastic participants who created some amazing artwork. Some were even persuaded to model for the group. At one point the models were dancing! It was a proper Friday night out!
I began the session with a couple of drawing exercises to explain the basics of fashion illustration. Then the participants used the drawing grids that I gave them to fashion their own versions.
The first task was to draw the legendary Stylecrone, Judith Boyd in an iconic pose, which the participants handled beautifully.
Then our “House Models” Alison, Kate, Jasmine and Cynthia took to the floor and struck up some dynamic poses. They were wearing a combination of fabulous clothes that they had arrived in, plus extras that I and others had brought.
After posing for 5-10 mins, they had an impromptu breakout dancing session which was great fun.
Next we invited participants to don some spectacular garments (shout out to my son for allowing me to raid his Vinted collection, alongside my own archives).
Everyone was a great sport and the whole evening was fantastic. I received some lovely compliments and even got a round of applause at the end!
Keep your eyes peeled for the next one.
Coming up this week, I am preparing for London Fashion Week which starts on Thursday 19th. I am invited to the runway show for Justin Cassin Menswear on the 22nd which I’m so excited about!! I’ve never been to a Fashion Week show before.
I’m also hoping to attend the shows for Caramel Rock and Fashion Scout, so watch this space.
To kick things off on the 19th, I’m going to go into Central London and do some street fashion drawing. I was practising whilst watching Anna Sui’s show live on Instagram Live on Saturday (14th) Night.
Quick illustration with my brush pen, of models at Anna Sui’s runway show in New York. For Autumn/Winter 2026
Here’s reminder that my exhibition, Drawing Threads, is currently on at Stanley Arts, South Norwood, London until March 6th. The gallery is open 9-5pm Mon-Fri, so do go and take a look if you get the chance.
A flyer for my current exhibition at Stanley Arts, “Drawing Threads”.
The originals are all for sale at the Gallery, and if you’re not in the market for original artwork then please visit my website shop where you can buy prints of all my work.
County Wedding Events Logo
And just one final thing, I’ll be at the County Events Signature Wedding Show at Bluewater on March 1st for my first wedding show! Do look out for me if you’re passing- or if you know someone who’s getting married please recommend me as a Live Wedding Illustrator.
My promotional banner for Zoe Parker Wedding Illustration
To help you stay Gleeful this month, here are some links to the wonderful places I’ve mentioned in case you fancy Dabbling with them!
Alison Carpenter at Art for Life
Judith Boyd at Stylecrone
See you soon!
Zoe