Sketching Costumes

Huge thanks and gratitude to Costume Mistress Judith V. for allowing the Whidbey Island Sketchers up into the costume storage loft at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts (WICA). So many beautiful costumes, hats, headdresses, capes, fans and SHOES!!! Very hard to choose and focus on just one neat thing to draw!

Playing Dress Up in WICA Costume Loft

It's always fun to dress up in theater costumes at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts and draw one another. This was our third time. We got to draw one sweet-faced floozy and two total bad asses. Thanks very much, Judith, for making the arrangements and dressing our sketcher models. And thanks to our awesome models, Bess Granby, Phyllis Ray and Judith Van Arnam.

Quotable quote of the day, from Phyllis: "I feel like my mask is slipping".

Bess the saloon girl

Judith looking fierce in cat suit

Phyllis in pink curlers, kimono and Mardi Gras mask

Taking a costume trip thru time.

WISK, thanks to Judith, had the fun of sketching in the costume loft once again.  This year we planned it differently and lined up sketchers to model, rotating throughout the afternoon.
I had fun to creating stories around their characters.

Sherryl was a drinker, smoker, who spent her day in a dressing gown talking on the phone.
Bess, was from the forties, waiting at a station somewhere, clutching her purse fearfully, with her bag by her feet.  Running away from home?  Meeting her military boyfriend....?
Judith, took on the glamour role also, with her take on Mardi Gras, glitzy mask, and glittering jacket.
While I waited, I did a quick sketch of the coat rack with a couple of dresses slung over waiting for their role in the drama.

Coats and dresses

Sherryl Darling!

Bess and Judith

WICA Costume Loft

Okay, I'm doing a little catch up here. Starting in January when we had the pleasure of going to the costume loft at WICA. Others have long ago posted sketches of costumes and hats....so my contribution is this little stack of wonderful shoes. They all evoke something about their time, their place, their character. It was like playing in grandmas attic with clothing of days gone by.