Folds, Light, and Folly

Illustrations By Ellinor Forje

I’m obsessed with drapery, specifically how it’s drawn and painted. “The Stolen Kiss,” by Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Marguerite Gérard (located in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg) is a favourite, though Leonardo da Vinci remains, to me, the true master.

Last year, that obsession peaked. I became fixated on the mystery of how fabric falls over the body, and the only way to resolve it was to try, sketching, again and again, how cloth hangs and folds.

The first illustration, like the rest, is based on a dress I saw in Vogue, a sheer chiffon piece worn by Laetitia Casta. (Note to self, catalogue your drawings. Response, ignored.)

I’ve learned, slowly, that the only way to draw drapery is through observation and practice. There’s no shortcut. And one more thing, listen to those who know more than you.

I didn’t.

I dismissed my instructor’s advice as “ranting.” He made it sound simple, observe folds, light, and shadow, then draw. That’s it.

Instead, I tried to “solve” drapery through theory. I stopped drawing and went back to textbooks, convinced they held the answer. I found passages like: “Consider the draping of a point… a thin circular sheet of radius R… isotropic material… curvature… κ/r…”

Eh?