Live model Brittney was my beautiful inspiration last week for Week 25 of my 52 Live Fashion Stories - putting a spin on color - why are we humans so obsessed with the color of our skin? What if our skin were blue, or purple? Here is Brittney in reds and pinks! We come in all different colors, so let's paint the rainbow!
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Last week, for Week 24 of 52 Live Fashion Stories, I painted live model Aurora's portrait again, this time from a different angle and in color! I gotta say, I'm loving the use of color - while still keeping things minimal and monochromatic.
On Friday I went to a beach party in Santa Monica with old architecture co-workers and my bestie, Natalie. So I treated myself to some plein air painting of beach-club lifestyle and fresh patio fashions for Week 19 of 52 Live Fashion Stories! Yaasss!! The finished piece. No trip to the beach is complete without at least a toe dip in the ocean! :-) A little inspiration, a little toe dipping ...
In Week 18 of 52 Live Fashion Stories I painted Shoko’s portrait, from ‘Draw This’ on YouTube. Their live figure drawing studio in Huntington Beach is very cool, and this session’s live model, Shoko, sat through a 10-minute pose. A tough job, for sure!
Week 17 of 52 Live Fashion Stories last week brought more inspiration from ‘Draw This’ on YouTube, the live figure drawing studio in Huntington Beach I’ve been checking out for live painting. Just like being there in their studio, so cool! This is Tamura, modeling a 10-minute pose.
Last Friday I got to paint not one, but three adorable little kids for Week 15 of my 52 Live Fashion Stories. I don't usually get to paint kids live since they move fast as lightning and they're so hard to capture on the spot ;-) But we all managed quite well, with treats like cheese and phone games as bribes :-)) First up, cutie pie little Alexis and her sweet mom Eileen. Tina also brought her cute daughters with her, Alex and Olive. Alex' portrait, and some serious cuteness here! How adorable is she!! Cutie Olive, Alex' little sis! Last, but not least, I painted Shani's portrait, who not only has the most amazing curls, but as it turns out, makes these cute slides, too! Her reaction says it all! :-) So fun meeting and painting all of you guys, thanks for coming out! :-)
Follow me on Instagram @ct_sketches to be the first to know when I'll be painting live again! And maybe you'll be the next portrait I paint. xoxo Cristina I had the best Monday ever last week: I spent it at the beach in Ventura, with my mom, celebrating her birthday! :-)) What a perfect day! We had the most delicious world famous fish tacos at the local Spencer Makenzie's, then we hit the beach for an awesome girls day. And of course, I just had to paint the birthday girl's portrait, the original fashionista! Which goes down in history as Week 14 of 52 Live Fashion Stories :-) Happy birthday, mommy! I love you so much, and I always have the most fun beach girls days with you! <3 I can't complain about my Monday: it was a great day at the office ;-)
So you're planning a birthday party and want to put a unique twist on it. Or a wedding and want to give your bridesmaids and bridal party a special and memorable gift. How about a watercolor portrait of your guests, just like this one, painted at your event, on the spot? This is a portrait I painted of Melinda just last Friday at my good friends Jones Coffee Roasters coffee shop in Pasadena. Melinda saw my Instagram announcement last week that I would be at the coffee shop to paint live watercolor portraits, and she came to meet me and have her portrait painted! This gorgeous magenta hair looked amazing on her! I painted her portrait live, on the spot, and she got to take it home with her :-) She was so happy with her portrait, she framed it right away and posted a picture of it on Instagram. The photo below is courtesy of @mind.ale.12 I loved seeing her reaction when I showed her the portrait: she was amazed! She loved the fact that the portrait resembled her and that it also showcased her beauty. She told me she found it empowering to see herself through my artist eyes, to see what I see, to focus on the beauty in her instead of that critical voice we all have in the back of our mind. This really made my day, it was so special to see the difference my art makes in someone's life and the kind of positive mind shift it brings! Do you dream of your guests feeling as special as Melinda did? I would love to help you create a memorable experience for them, so send me a quick note and we can begin to transform this dream into reality. Your day will be remembered with so much joy, the memory of it imprinted and recalled every time they see their portrait. xo Cristina Thanks again for your continued support, Jones!
So what happens when you discover that your driver’s license has been expired for more than 6 months?? (GASP!) Well, first you feel incredibly grateful and thankful that no cop has pulled you over during this whole time lol. Second, you rush to the DMV that very same day and wait in a 3-hour line wrapped around the building, on a Friday, their busiest day of the week, on a beautiful and sunny a 90-degree summer day. And you simultaneously roast and melt in the sun while you wait. And you’re grateful. And you make the most of it. Like you do your live sketching for Week 12 of your 52 Live Fashion Stories from both unsuspecting subjects and willing ones while you wait in line. ;-) Cuz art sometime happens in the most unexpected of places ... even at the DMV! The lady waiting in front of me was wearing a cute pink cutout shirt with her lacy peek-a-boo undergarment straps showing, reminding me of Madalynne lingerie. I just had to sketch her, as she unknowingly continued talking on the phone. And then I turned around to the lady behind me, Louise, who kindly agreed to pose for a quick portrait sketch. I did miss my watercolors, and I did have a small travel set with me that I bring everywhere, but there was no way I could hold my watercolors set, my water container and my small sketchbook and paint while standing in line! In the sun!! So pencil sketching it was. I was so happy to be doing something I love, not to mention something productive, while waiting in line for so long. And before I knew it, Louise and I started chatting, and I found out all sorts of interesting things about her, like the fact that she’s a quilter and she once quilted her own portrait on a modern quilt of her own design! Go figure, another artist! I was happy to get to know the story behind yet another one of my portrait models! All's well that ends well: after melting in the sun, I managed to make it inside the DMV office long before closing time, and I am now the proud owner of a brand new (unexpired) driver's license ;-)
Last week, for Week 11 of 52 Live Fashion Stories I tried something new: live painting from models posing in real time on Draw This on YouTube. A very interesting experience. I went through a series of 1-minute poses and focused on the body pose energy as I imagined it in a fashion pose on the runway. One minute is so fast, ha! This was faster than even the Mimi G fashion show ;-) And I kept painting, and painting, and painting ...
I might just have to incorporate some of these fast and loose sketches into my business cards too :-) I had so much fun today painting fashion portraits of my friend Sandra (above) and her friend Lisa (below) for week 10 of my 52 Live Fashion Stories. Sandra and I used to work together, and she is a fellow architect. And, you guessed it, so is Lisa. How many architects does it take to paint a fashion illustration? ;-) Lisa, left, and Sandra, right, with their fashion illustrations. Fab dresses, ladies, you both looked beautiful! Thanks for being my models! :-) Don't miss out, follow me on Instagram and Instagram Stories to be the first to know about my live painting events!
Want my live fashion illustrations at an event of your own? Send me a message, and I'd be happy to work with you for fashion events, store and hotel openings, birthdays, weddings, and any other personal or corporate events. xo Cristina On Week 9 of my 52 Live Fashion Stories I ran into my friend Quincy at Jones Coffee, he dropped by to see me paint. That was a nice surprise, as I always welcome a friendly face when I’m out and about painting. And the bonus: I got to paint another guy's portrait, which doesn’t happen every day. In fact, it happened twice in one day: I also got to paint Owen’s portrait, who came with his girlfriend Emily to Jones just to get their portrait painted. As they move away to different colleges soon, I was so happy to help them preserve one of the many memories they’ll be making together this summer. I also finally got to paint the two lovely ladies working at Jones, Emily and Celeste. Emily with her portrait. So nice to meet you all, thanks for being such pro models :-)
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess named Mimi. Mimi ruled with grace and kindness over her fashion, style and sewing kingdom, aptly named Mimi G Style. She loved her kingdom dearly and worked tirelessly from dawn til dusk to make it more beautiful each day. And each year all came from far and near to see the beautiful things Mimi made with love. For three days and three nights they ate, drank and made merry. And shopped for fabric. And of course, they all lived happily ever after. Because this was Mimi’s dream come true, after all. And what a dream this has been! I'm still on a high from this past weekend because for Week 7 of my 52 Live Fashion Stories I got to illustrate at the Mimi G Style three-day Fashion, Sewing & Style Conference at the luxurious JW Marriott at LA Live in downtown Los Angeles. This was the 6th (and final) annual conference, and I am so happy I had the chance to be a part of it. The first day of the conference was registration and fashion show day. I was filled with so much anticipation and excitement. As the whole set up came together, I was happy to meet the many amazing volunteers, sponsors and guest instructors. Debbie Kreiling from Simplicity Patterns was there, Babylock, Spoonflower, Norris Danta Ford (duh! Mimi's knight in shining armor), Anita Morris, Rosy Pena, Candice Ayala, Brittany Jones and many more. As people started to arrive for registration, the excitement grew. All the women attending the conference received their pink gift bag and a string of colorful Hawaiian leis. They were all very excited, and they looked happy and festive! After finishing registration, the runway was all set up, the lights were on, and the fashion show was ready to begin! The show was amazing! The music, the lights, the high energy! And the beautiful models were none other than the ladies attending the conference. They modeled their own fabulous creations based on Mimi G Style sewing patterns, and let me tell you, they did a lot of hard work, and they all looked incredible! To see so many beautiful and creative ladies in outfits they had sewn themselves was inspiring. They all worked that catwalk so confidently. And everybody cheered them on, what a loving and supportive Mimi G Style community! During the fashion show I sketched faster than I had ever sketched before :-) This really gave me a good taste for the lightning-fast, action-packed vibe at fashion shows. It was such an exciting (read: nerve-racking) experience for me! And I can't wait to do it again!! Day two of the conference was jam-packed with sewing classes throughout the day. Gifted instructors Maddie Flanigan and Mary Alice Duff, among others, taught classes like bra making and pattern adjustments. In the evening everyone went to our awesome local LA shop The Fabric Store on La Brea for an evening of more celebration, champagne and cupcakes, and of course, fabric shopping!! The store was packed, women from the conference kept filling the store in waves, and the awesome employees were cutting fabric at supersonic speed. (Yes, that's me and The Rock, aka my new bf, at the JW Marriott) The last day of the conference started off with charter buses running back-and-forth between the hotel and the fabulous Michael Levine fabric store in LA's famous Fashion District. More fabric shopping! Is there such a thing as too much fabric shopping? I think not ;-) As the ladies started to come back to the hotel, I was all set up to paint their watercolor portraits on the spot. One of them was Gia @themahoganybox who was wearing a fab turquoise head wrap of her own design - check out her shop here! One very happy customer :-) Gia's reaction completely made my day!! <3 And the ladies kept coming! I was very honored to paint these beautiful ladies and to experience their excitement at having their portraits painted. What an amazing and special day! I was blown away by the warm responses and the incredible support and I received from all of them. Oh my goodness, thank you so much, ladies! You have completely made my day on Sunday! It was a pleasure to meet you all! The whole conference experience was a blast, and to be in the presence of so many creative, kind and positive people was incredibly fulfilling. Quite a dream, and I had an amazing time! Thank you, Mimi, for inviting me to be part of your special event! Now let’s all of us (and our fabric stashes) live happily ever after …
xo Cristina Week 6 of my 52 Live Fashion Stories started off with a bang on Tuesday at Jones Coffee in Pasadena! This is the first time in the six weeks I've been going to Jones to paint that some lovely people showed up for my live illustrations just from seeing me on Instagram alone! Yay!! Super excited for this new milestone! Thanks for showing up guys, you totally made my day! :-) As soon as I arrived at Jones, Grace, a writer and artist, came up to me and told me she saw this announcement on Instagram that I was going to show up to paint live fashion illustrations. So she became my very first Instagram client :-)) Thank you so much for coming out to see me, Grace, it was so nice to meet you! I had so much fun painting your portrait, and it was awesome talking with you about our creative processes. I'm sure we'll run into each other again at Jones. The lovely and creative Grace. While I was painting Grace's portrait, Teri and Joyce and signed up to be next! Teri's chic red bob and blue eyes were a striking combination, a painter's dream. Joyce's pretty dress was just the right shade of blue to highlight her bright blue eyes! Nicely complemented by the Jones sign in the background ;-) These two beautiful friends were so sweet and kind, and it was a lot of fun getting to know them. It was lovely to meet you both and to paint your portraits, ladies! Hope to see you again soon. Last, but not least, I was blown away by Pasadena Magazine showing up to see what I was up to at Jones!! A big thank you to Sydney, the Marketing & Event Coordinator at Pasadena Magazine (on the left) and her assistant Lindsey for taking the time to come and watch me work. So happy to connect with a local magazine supporting Pasadena! The beautiful Sydney and her cascading blonde curls. What a natural beauty! Lindsey with her portrait. Thank you so much for the Instagram Stories shoutout, ladies, I appreciate it! It was a pleasure to paint your portraits. Let's stay in touch. And as always, thank you Jones Coffee Roasters for being supportive of my artwork and for allowing me to spend time painting at your cool coffee shop! I'm having a blast every time I'm there.
What an amazing week 6! It's mind blowing to me just how much can be accomplished when taking consistent action. In just six short weeks I feel like I've made so much progress in coming out of my shell and painting live illustrations more. And I've already met so many wonderful people by simply pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I am so glad I've decided to embark on this journey with my year-long 52 Live Fashion Stories project, and I'm very grateful to everyone out there who is supporting me along the way: thank you for everyone following me on Instagram, for every 'like', every blog visit, and for showing up in person whenever I paint live. If you would like to work with me for your social or private event, please send me a message, I would be happy to add to your special day. I'm available for retail, hospitality and beauty/lifestyle events, weddings, corporate parties, birthdays and more. For daily updates and behind-the-scenes videos follow me on Instagram @ct_sketches. Thanks guys!! See you out there! xo C During week five of my 52 Live Fashion Stories project I got a chance to paint in-person not once, but twice!! Yaay! For a quick recap, check out week 1, week 2, week 3 and week 4. On Saturday, my friend Ce Ce came to my house for a private portrait session. She brought with her a few tops and bottoms, and we had a blast mixing and matching different outfits, accessorizing and painting several fashion sketches of her over a couple of hours. With such a beautiful model, it was a blast to play dress-up and paint her portrait! Thanks for being such a patient muse, Ce Ce! <3 On Friday I had the pleasure of meeting Christina at Jones Coffee in Pasadena. The pizza place next-door, Pie Life Pizza kept calling my name to go pick up my pizza ... except I hadn't ordered any, ha! And then Christina showed up, my namesake: pizza mystery solved! Only slightly different name spelling, but we'll let that slide ;-) When Christina passed by me she mentioned she liked what I was painting, so I asked her to be my inspiration for the day. Little did she know that picking up her pizza lunch came with being a model for the day ;-) Thanks for taking the time to pose for me, Christina! You were such a joy to meet! My two lovely models made week five a super fun one! Thank you, ladies! xoxo
Wrapping up week four of my '52 Live Fashion Stories’ project with Linda's portrait. I met Linda at Jones Coffee in Pasadena, and she immediately caught my eye with her stylish outfit and glamorous black cat eye sunnies. Her high-waisted navy pants and blue and white striped shirt were the perfect classic pairing.
It turns out her entire outfit was vintage, including the awesome picnic basket purse and chic scarf tied to it. But you couldn't tell just from looking at it: her vibe was so polished, modern and fresh. On top of it, not only do we both live in South Pasadena and are creatives, but we are also huge fans of Gwen Stefani ... which practically makes us twins ;-) Thanks for being my muse today, Linda! You inspired me, and it was such a pleasure to meet you and to find out how many things we have in common! Hope to see you again at Jones. Last Monday I got to celebrate Mother's Day with my mom, a day late since my mom had to work on Sunday. I made a picnic for her with healthy food (not everything I made was a great hit, but I'm not exactly a great cook ;-) and off I went to Ventura from LA. We had a sunny girls' day at the beach together, and we had soooo much fun! And of course I brought my watercolors with me and had fun painting mom's portrait for the third week of my '52 Live Fashion Stories' project - to find out more about this, check out my blog post here. My mom and I, in our natural habitat: the beach! I've been going to the beach with my mom since I was 2 years old, and our tradition is going strong! Our fun beach picnic, complete with pink flamingo cups and straws for our hibiscus tea! Sunny but cold with a strong breeze, hence the parkas as an accessory to our flipflops ;-)) And yes, we're twinsing, my jacket is a gift from mom to match hers <3 #GirlyGirls Definitely way cold for this time of year, even for Ventura! But we didn't let that stop us from having a blast with our pink flamingos and from enjoying the beach and the sun. And even though we had the beach all to ourselves, we got photobombed by this little cutie! Cheers, mom! Happy Mother's Day! <3 Mom and her portrait. Not a bad place to paint! Happy as a clam! :-)) Love my beach office: I may have to fight the wind some days, but it comes with paperweights ;-) And the unavoidable ... at least it matches my beach towel! Posing for mom. I like how even though my teeth were chattering in the strong breeze and I was wearing a down puffer jacket, I still had on my summer sun hat and happy scarf :-) Gotta bring that beachy feeling at all costs ... Just another Monday at the office ...
Last Thursday afternoon I went back to Jones Coffee Shop in Pasadena for the second week of my '52 Live Fashion Stories' project. If you're wondering what this project is, check out my blog post from last week here.
This time around the coffee shop was pretty empty, but I finally found an unsuspecting subject, tehe! I noticed a guy focused on his laptop with his headphones on, except I wasn't sure I wanted to interrupt him. But since the place was practically empty, after waiting a while and warming up with some doodles, I had no choice but to eventually bite the bullet. I asked him if he wouldn't mind posing for me while he worked, and he didn't chase me away. A promising start! He was nice enough to let me paint him, so I sat there painting for a few minutes while he continued to work. I was so happy he didn't turn me down that I completely forgot to ask his name, haha! So hopefully I will run into him again sometime to make a proper introduction. Since I’m not a coffee drinker (gasp!) I’m pretty clueless about when coffee shops are most busy. So I guess I’ll have to drop by Jones at different times of day and test the waters (or in my case the tea). Let's see what next week brings! Will I end up at Jones again? Will I be able to find willing subjects? Tune in next Sunday for an update on week number three. Wish me luck! :-) I am fascinated by clothes and fashion. The choices we make each morning when putting on an outfit to walk out the door reflect who we are, our personality, our mood, even our hope for the day ahead of us.
That first day at a new job when you want to put your best foot forward so you wear your most professional and capable outfit, the anticipation of a date and your hopes and dreams while you choose what to wear, getting ready for your big day and picking the perfect wedding dress as a reflection of who you are, and even the day-to-day clothes we wear when we think we're just gonna 'throw something on' to run an errand. From big life moments to daily routines, what we wear every day tells the story of how we feel about ourselves and how we see the world. I love telling these stories with my illustrations! And this month I am kicking off a new project to help me do just that: '52 Live Fashion Stories'. For the next year I will be illustrating one live fashion event each and every week. Some will be formal fashion events, and some will pretty casual, like sketching at the beach or in a coffee shop. And each week I want to capture real, in-the-moment experiences and emotions of the people I paint, their fashion choices and self-expression, their unique stories. For the past five years, I have been sketching and painting fashion illustrations and portraits inspired mostly by two-dimensional images. I experimented with illustrating live a few times recently, and I found it to be so exciting! It gave me those stomach butterflies that I just know I have to follow. It's exhilarating! It's also pretty unnerving. At this point, I’m most comfortable painting from still images, so it's scary to me to open up the imperfect side of my work and to take risks by moving into uncharted territory. I am uncertain. I am unsure. What if I suck? What if I fall flat on my face? What if I never become as good as I hope to be? But then I think of what I heard Cheryl Strayed say on The Tim Ferris Show: 'Today I am surrendering to uncertainty'. And so I choose to surrender. I choose to let go of self-judgment and take the plunge into a new adventure, despite fear, despite uncertainty. To follow a new growth path despite not knowing where it leads. I choose to value my intentions more than the outcome. To just show up and do. To put paint to paper and simply enjoy the process. Which, incidentally, also frees me up to have more fun along the way :-) And that's is exactly what happened today for my first live illustration week to kick off my exciting little project. My friend Natalie and I spent some time at one of the coolest gems in Pasadena, Jones Coffee Shop. We had a great time catching up, I did some warm-up painting, and then I finally mustered up the courage to ask a perfect stranger with a fun and colorful coat if I can sketch her portrait. As it turned out, the person I asked was none other than Mireya, one of the coffee shop owners, who is a big supporter of the arts, and who gave me a very warm welcome to Jones. She wore her colorful coat today, on an unseasonably cold and rainy LA day, to stand out in a crowd so her husband could find her easily. I feel like my first week of the project was a success: I showed up. And it was so fun to get to know Mireya and the coffee shop! All simply because I took that first step to surrender. |
WELCOME!
I'm Cristina Tudor, a Beverly Hills fashion illustrator. I paint live illustrations at fashion, retail, entertainment, bridal and lifestyle events for clients such as Chanel, Ferragamo, Piaget, David Yurman x Galia Lahav, Badgley Mischka, Bloomingdale's, Warner Bros. Studios, Diptyque Paris, Ted Baker London, Eric Buterbaugh x Beverly Hills EB Florals, and Survey Monkey, among others. FOLLOW CRISTINA:
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