Dress up and Draw

Course Dates: 11^th September 2026 (Friday)

I am a final year student doing Costume Design. I am excited to share the knowledge that I have learnt about storytelling, and costume dressing and making.

This is a playful experimental workshop exploring drawing and collage through costume and dressing up where we can capture the power of self expression, or a character and narrative in drawing. When responding from life it is important that you are not separate from what you are describing. We will take turns dressing and drawing each other from life in fun and playful outfits, using pattern fabrics and eccentric accessories. I will be bringing a big box of fabrics, clothing and accessories for everyone to use.

Modelling and dressing up is a key part in my personal practice and designing process, as it brings out the physicality of the character. You step into the shoes of who or what you can become. It gives you a personal doorway of details of the clothing and fabrics, the body of the character and how they feel in the clothing that they are wearing. I encourage you to bring your own items of clothing or accessories to the workshop to share and adorn the group with. What will you wear? Maybe a frilly flamboyant skirt or big chunky patent boots. Dressing up is a joy, lets capture the fantastic feeling of fabrics and materials adorning the body on paper.

All your materials will be supplied. You will take home your collection of drawings from this workshop. We are going to start working on small and fast drawings then build up to faster and bigger pieces. We will zoom in and focus on the fabrics and objects you have either brought in or borrowed at first. Then create a collection of collage papers that we will use later in the workshop. We will find the figure underneath the layers of paper and dress our pages with the markmaking and collage. We will build our drawings from our material responses and find the character, pose and attitude.

See Course Details for further information