leitmotif

Continuing with some paintings. This is an abstract view of some objects that surrounded me in my studio from high school. I still love this, even if it's 4 years old, because of the mixed technique between watercolours and pencils, colours and shades of graphite grey, round and pointy shapes. The title is inspired by an album name by one of the most amazing bands ever, Dredg. And here's one of my favorite songs from them, I hope you like it.

Dredg - Jamais vu

watercolours, pencils, crayons on paper 50 x 70 cm

branches

Time for some watercolours on paper.

I painted this almost 8 years ago, in my first year of high school. When the professor dropped a bunch of branches on the table and said "this is your still life for today" I thought she was joking. I remember spending my weekend in school just to finish it. The project was bigger, this is not the actual study after the still life but an interpretation of it, I also painted on canvas some works, but I don't have photos of them and of course, I gave them away as a present for someone I don't even remember right now.

I'm a bit nostalgic and I just erased a full page of nonsense I wrote here about the days that went away and will never come back, so... I'll just let you enjoy the painting and some music.

click for sounds

watercolours and crayons on paper 50x70 cm

office wear

This project was all about the wearable side of clothing, the one we all, obviously, know. This was actually the first time I created only pret-a-porter clothes, with no twists, just basic pattern shapes.
So, the idea was simple, create 3 collections for the casual office wear. So that means creating an image for the powerful, career, strong, classy woman... and that's simple... Coco Chanel. I usually don't recommend being inspired by someone else's work, especially if it's a designer, but this was a project for college, and my development, so, if it's for a process of learning, no harm done. What inspired me from Chanel, were the coats and skirts, so I took those lines and kind of played with them. Also, I played with the monochrome, black and white, I usually do everything coloured, I am coloured everyday, so this was a big challenge for me. I had to put some though, in buttons and accessories (where you see blue in the clothing, it's actually grey, I don't know what happened when I processed the photos).

The first collection (my favourite) kind of sends me to a woman that has very high standards, fashionable, has a very important place at the firm she works in, or maybe owns it, and is definitely sure about what she wants in life.

The second one send me to a flight attendant or a woman that works with people every day. A very kind but imposing woman. Maybe a wife or a mom, but a working mom.

This last one is a bit more youthful, for a lady that has more of a creative job, or works at an office and is a bit more casual but still stylish and fits well in the dress code. I find this woman with a bit more of a wild personality, free, confident and a weekend fanatic.

corsetmania 3

I guess this one is the only one I really like from this collection.

...mmmm... so this would be the third collection from the series. I don't even know where to start. I don't connect with any of these drawings anymore, I don't feel they represent my style but they were a challenge and I'm always up for that. This would be the Object Collection, the more theatrical and sculptural one, but despite that, I find these sketches to be very very simple, and of course, they were created really fast from lack of time and deadlines I needed to fulfill. So, without any more descriptions, here it is, Corsetmania 3:

watercolour and markers on paper 21 x 29,7 cm

corsetmania 2

This is the second collection inspired by the Victorian corset. This one is more on the pret-a-porter side (ready-to-wear), and when I drew it I had in mind the goth ballerina wear, something very dark with red satin, black tulle, lots of stripes and laces and a very luscious silhouette.
I used the same body figures here (I have to say, since I received questions about this, I did drew the croquis for every position, but the emphasis was on the ideas for the designs here and not so much on the composition of the illustration, so I copied the figures to buy time).

watercolours and markers on paper 21 x 29.7 cm

corsetmania

This collection is part of a "trilogy" inspired by the Victorian corset. The shapes go towards the haute couture side of design, and tend to look more like ball gowns or wedding dresses... but because of the colours, the wedding dresses could appeal to a more eccentric, out of the box bride.
I kind of made these sketches really fast, you can see the body position repeating, not as many details as you might expected from me, but they are only sketches so I'll settle for that. I don't quite remember why I chose this colour scheme, but in the end, this combination between pink and green, could never go wrong. What I particularly like in this collection are the veils, gloves and hair, that white with pale accents of green and pink. My personal favourite is sketch no 4.
Which one is yours?

Here's a song for the atmosphere: click (I enjoy the ending the most)

watercolours and markers on paper 21 x 29,7 cm

liberating style magazine

I was featured in a magazine from the US called Liberating Style for the November issue. I'm really happy and I would like to thank them this way for including me. Here is the article.
ps. small addition, the first photo of me is made by Mihai Albu.

You can view and read the rest of of the magazine here.

traditional

It is time for a bit of patriotism. We're one month away from "celebrating" 20 years from the revolution (this video is a presentation of the city of Timisoara, my hometown, with pictures and a song from December 1989, when our country became free from Communism), therefore this post came just in time.

I made this one in 2005, when I was still in high school, based on the Romanian traditional culture. There are some symbolic elements in this composition that define the traditional feel, those being Constantin Brancusi's Endless Column, traditional pots, wagon wheels, old sculptured gates and elements from the national Romanian costume and regional traditional costume.
So now I gave you a little history lesson about my country. The colours are very eclectic, but the main ones are the colour from the national flag (blue, yellow and red).

watercolour on paper 29.7 x 42 cm

This one has the same inspiration but with more of a modern, theatrical twist. I put the Romanian touches in the geometric patterns, some designs and techniques of the outfits. The painting became a Daily Deviation on dA, so I'm very happy that it got such a response and people loved it that much. So thank you! I painted this in the summer time, so you can definitely see the warm and happy influences of the season in the colour palette.

watercolour and pastel on paper 29.7 x 42 cm

surrealist fashion

I think this is the most extreme example of my style defined by the mixture between fashion design and painting. The idea behind this composition is the transposition of a surrealist painting onto a human figure, dressing it with the painting itself. The theme was very creative, most certainly not wearable but about the ability of creating a sculptural piece.
The paintings that I used here are Chirico's Hector and Andromache and Boccioni's The Street Enters the House.

watercolour on paper 29.7 x 42 cm

For this one, the theme was almost the same, only this time, the inspiration came from literature. The painting was featured in an exhibition in 2004, the theme was Rhinoceros and it represented a book written by Eugen Ionesco, a Romanian writer, in 1959. The idea was to create a dress made from a rhino, not a real one, obviously. Again, the concept was to create something dramatic and sculptural instead of something ready-to-wear. I really suggest some themes like this, if you want to boost your creativity, it doesn't have to be all about patterns and cuts and stitches, at least not from the very beginning.

watercolour on paper 29.7 x 42 cm

fashion compositions

This was my first attempt with that many silhouettes on a page. It was inspired by the fashion in the 20's and 30's and from Gustav Klimt's paintings. The whole thing is very chaotic, with all the colours and shapes mixing with the over detailed background, but when it comes to me, I guess nothing is simple. I've been playing with fur textures, long, straight-cut dresses, hats and volumes.

watercolour on paper 50x70 cm

I made this on the last day of school, when I was in the 11th grade. It was summer, the teacher was in no mood for us, we were in no mood for school, so she gave us this assignment: combine 3 periods in the fashion history, in 3 outfits on the same page. So I chose my all time favorite Ancient Egypt, then Ancient Greece and the Romanticism period. So basically I used a lot of hieroglyphs, drapery, transparent silky fabrics, straps, corsets and mixed them together. I really thought that the combination between greens, reds and blues will be very tricky, but in the end I managed to pull it of. And this is the result:

watercolour on paper 35x50 cm