Robe a la francaise

I'm curious about the different "robe a la etc"s from the 1700s, and I came across good sources in the American Duchess  and costumeholic blogs. Turns out there's myriad "robe a la something"s, each one named, so it seems, from mixing and matching various repeating features.

While each variation is glorious, I think I'll limit myself to what I see as the basics: robe a la francaise, robe a la volante, robe a la polonaise, robe en chemise, and robe a l'Anglaise. First one to be drawn is robe a la francaise:

Tudor Lady

Oh, glorious payday. It is quite nice to have an official job again, especially one that lets me continue free-lancing!

I'm currently working on finishing a project for a friend - and he's been super patient as I've put it off for two months... this last week, I also squeezed in a quick photoshop painting of a Tudor era woman rockin' an English hood.

Old-fashioned

1680s pompadour dress with a fontage (the thing on top of her head)

Colonial/Georgian style dress

Barbara Villiers, copied from this painting by Sir Peter Lely.

She was a (the first?) mistress of Charles II.
I like post-restoration dresses in England. I like just thinking about it: in the decade of the 1650s under Cromwell, dress was controlled by Puritans and "morality police"; but then when the king returned to the throne in 1660, BAM! boobs are back! 

That's it for now! Happy drawings!

Organizing and Regency

Starting in late August, I began to teach myself how to use Photoshop (PS5) using books, blogs, and experimenting. It has been a challenging, but fun, journey so far. I've skimmed only one-third of the two textbooks that I bought, so in no way am I through learning all I can from them... but creating will always be dynamic!

I'm spending this week organizing. I've been trying to come up with cheap, effective ways to keep my canvases and sketchbooks organized. The additional challenge is to come up with a way that also deters the cats...

In the meantime, I got a chance to draw the above girl in an empire/regency era dress. I was pretty pleased with the speed I was able to render it (1.5 hours)! Just a month ago, my speed was slower because it took a lot of time to apply the brand new techniques I'd just read about, on top of the time it took to repeatedly look things up to make sure I was getting it right. That being said, I can't wait to learn more new stuff :D