Fashion Illustration
Vian Studios' series of blogs featuring individuals & their creativity is now featuring Dominic Gomez: an artist, fashion illustrator, figurative painter, and printmaker. All images used are from Dominic’s website.
When did you start fashion illustrating and where do you pull your inspiration?
I started art school in San Francisco in the 1980's first learning how to do conventional illustration: drawing and painting what art directors needed for their clients. This could be almost anything...food, furniture, etc. Later on I realized I preferred drawing mostly people, or the figure. And people who had a strong sense of style with their clothing, their make-up, their look. This naturally led me to look at fashion magazines for inspiration. When I moved to Seattle I continued drawing and painting people during life drawing sessions. Not long after, I came across Chance Fashion and became involved with them to be further inspired.
Do you have a favorite medium to work with?
Right now I use pencil, pen-and-ink, watercolor, acrylic and colored pencil on good quality paper.
Since March, has Covid/quarantine affected your work? How have you been staying creative?
I have almost no opportunities to draw models in real time. There are occasional Zoom drawings sessions I join where I can see how a garment fits and moves on a person.
I stay creative by keeping sketchbooks handy and sketching ideas as they come to mind or as I run across images on social media or the internet.
How do you see the future of fashion illustration?
Fashion lustration will always be fashion media's "after-thought'. A fashion photographer is an editor's first choice when it comes to immediately recording and showing a designer's work. Fashion illustration will continue to be an alternative to the "hard truth" of photography. It will become another genre of fine art, like portrait painting, landscape, and still life. The direct connection fashion illustration has with apparel design will keep it more "alive' than museum art, though.
Do you have any advice for aspiring illustrators/artists?
Keep drawing and painting...keep practicing if that is your first love. There is no more direct connection between your imagination and making ideas "real" than drawing (or writing) with your hand. And don't be afraid to experiment with different materials to make pictures. Fashion media is in a fluid state right now and opportunities to create visual alternatives to photography will appear.
Follow Dominic Here:
To see more, check out Dominic’s Website: https://www.dominicgomezart.com/
Dominic’s facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dominic.gomez.77964
