Alexis Panayiotou Fashion Drawing

To celebrate and highlight the talents of our Short Course tutors, Central Saint Martins Window Gallery at 1 Granary Square is currently exhibiting some extraordinary work.  From ceramics, to jewellery, haute couture embroidery, fashion drawing, photography and illustration, the exhibition will showcase the talent of seven of our short courses tutors.  Fashion Illustrator and Central Saint Martins tutor Alexis Panayiotou contributed a large scale drawing of artist Paul Kindersley, to highlight the kinds of exercises that take place on a Fashion Drawing course.  We talk to Alexis about his work in the exhibition, where he finds inspiration and his advice for aspiring creatives.

How did you become a Fashion Illustrator?

After I finished my MA in 2004 I worked for Basso & Brooke doing illustrations for their digital textile prints. I had trained as a womenswear designer but I enjoyed doing a job where I could draw all day and I ended up staying there for 4 years before I left and took a job teaching illustration at Central Saint Martins on the BA fashion course and for the short courses in 2008.

Alexis Panayiotou, Fashion Drawing

Where do you get your inspiration from and how do you stay inspired?

The initial idea for a project can come from anywhere. I go and see as much as I can, art shows, films etc. I look at illustrators I like, and other stuff like computer games, anime and comics, I like all sorts of imagery and it all feeds into the work. I go to life drawing classes as often as I can as it’s important to keep drawing as much as possible and I find that ideas often come during the process of making work. Unexpected things can happen whilst working that I couldn’t have foreseen or planned and by the time a piece of work is finished it has usually generated further ideas.

What are you working on at the moment?

At the moment, I am working primarily on portrait painting

Tell us about your work in the CSM Short Courses exhibition.

The work in the exhibition demonstrates the kind of exercises we do on the drawing course, but on a much larger scale. I wanted to produce some figures that reveal the workings of the drawing, like an anatomy diagram you can see the ‘innards’ of the figure in layers from the initial basic skeleton, the basic shapes of the figure either drawn or using collage, and then details like print and the face, although not always necessarily in that order.

Which piece of creative work in any discipline do you most love?

I like all sorts of work, it’s very difficult to pick one piece. I go to the National Gallery a lot and I have a few favourite paintings there, I particularly like Samson and Delilah by Rubens and The Bathers at Asnieres by Seurat.  I love John Singer Sergent’s picture Carnation Lily Lily Rose at Tate Britain, it’s a beautiful study of the light quality at dusk.

What advice would you give to aspiring creatives? What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

The best advice I suppose is to persevere and to work as often as possible. Drawing is a very demanding and at times frustrating process and progress can be slow and imperceptible. Keep all your drawings good and bad and then look back on them after a few months and you will see the improvement, provided you have kept working in the meantime. Norman Rockwell said that there is always a point during the course of making a painting when you feel like it has failed and you have to summon the will to push through and finish the work. This piece of advice, and knowing that a painter as monumentally talented as he was still encountered such problems, has helped me finish many a painting that I otherwise might have trashed out of frustration

Alexis Panayiotou teaches a range of short courses at Central Saint Martins, including Life Drawing for Fashion Designers, Create a Fashion Portfolio – Intermediate and Fashion Drawing for Beginners.  Further details on all of our courses can be found on the Short Courses website http://www.arts.ac.uk/csm/courses/short-courses/.  The CSM Short Courses exhibition takes place in the Window Gallery at Central Saint Martins until 5 September 2017. To see what goes on in the CSM Short Courses classroom, follow @csmshortcourses and #MYCSM

As part of our current Short Courses exhibition on display at the Granary Building, Kings Cross, Oliver O’Keeffe, Graphic Designer, Illustrator and tutor at Central Saint Martins has contributed an amazing piece work now on display as well as his stunning sketchbook work. Teaching the Illustration Workshop and Introduction to Illustration (Online) courses, as well as tutoring upon Summer Study Abroad – Graphic Design; Oliver discusses his origin story, how he stays inspired and shares his wisdom on embracing our own unique abilities.

How did you become an Illustrator?

I have always been interested in stories. As a kid I was obsessed with films and would re-watch my favourites over and over. I would get engrossed in how certain scenes would look; for example I was fascinated by the ending of the film Bedknobs and Broomsticks, where the armour comes to life; I would re-enact this scene in the living room with a butter knife. I also developed a passion for comics from an early age, which helped plant the idea of drawing and narrative into my head. I loved Marvel comics, in particular the X-Men. As a ten year old, characters like Wolverine, Gambit and Rogue were very much part of my life.

I think it was only natural that from this point on I would do something with drawing and storytelling.

© Oliver O’Keeffe, Hope

Where do you get your inspiration from and how do you stay inspired?

Inspiration is a very fluid thing and can change from one year to the next. There are some staples in my life like comics, painting and film, though sometimes certain ideas will become very important.

I also have a couple of illustration projects on the go that keep me inspired. One is called 52wordsayear.com where I have to respond to a word each week; I do this with three other illustrators and the project has been going for about three years. I also take weekly drawing trips with two friends. They are both technically very accomplished so it’s really inspiring to learn from them.

© Oliver O’Keeffe, Chasm

What are you working on at the moment?

A comic book called ‘This Unheimlich Life’ about a guy who feels he can only validate his life if he is “a creative”. Unfortunately, he has no discernible creative talent. The story is really about someone who always thinks the grass is greener, he may have significant talents in other areas but is so blindsided by the idea that he must be creative that he is never really settled. The charters are also wearing costumes inspired by artists Rebecca Horn. So, lots of leather and pointy things.

Tell us about your work in the CSM Short Courses exhibition.

I run two short courses for CSM, Introduction to Illustration (Online) and Illustration Workshop. They are both designed to focus on what the student does as an image maker. Illustration is a very diverse industry with a lot of different styles and ways of working. The courses are designed to celebrate how the individual works and to find ways to help them progress. I do this by setting a number of briefs; some are more industry focused, like book covers and others are more probing, asking questions about illustration and what it can be.

Oliver O’Keeffe in studio

Which piece of creative work in any discipline do you most love?

‘Black Hole’ by Charles Burns.

What advice would you give to aspiring creatives?

Don’t be alarmed if you can’t draw like Raphael, only Raphael could draw like Raphael. Find out what it is only you can do as an image maker and embrace that.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

A Buddhist on a Megabus once convinced me that drawing is a great form of meditation. So if you don’t know what to draw then draw for peace of mind.

For further information and to book your place on an upcoming course visit the Illustration Workshop, Introduction to Illustration (Online) and Summer Study Abroad – Graphic Design course pages. All available courses can be found at the Central Saint Martins Short Courses website.

Students from around the world study at Central Saint Martins on short courses taught by academic staff and alumni in our state-of-the art studios, to learn a new skill, focus on personal or professional development or to experiment with trying something new!

We are hosting an exhibition that highlights the talent of a few of our tutors.

The exhibition runs from 6 July – 4 September 2017

Come join us if you are in London!

Short Courses Exhibition, 6 July – 4 September 2017. Central Saint Martins, 1 Granary Square, Windows Gallery, The Crossing, London N1C 4AA.