Don't Wait for Opportunities, Create Them!

Good Evening My Darlings,

I hope you all had a wonderful day today wherever you are in the world. It's past 11 PM here in New York. I've just returned from a midweek dinner and glass of riesling at Momo Caffe with my boyfriend, for some much needed rest and relaxation with my love. Sadly last night marked the end of my Blogging for Fashion Business course at FIT. But we all know that endings usher in new beginnings, and this instance was/is no exception. Our brilliant instructor, social media expert Dalia Strum, left us with some final words yesterday that kept me thinking throughout the day today. She said "don't wait for opportunities, create them" and I was once again reminded that the power is all in me.

Taking this course made me reminisce SO much about the first year I started my blog back in 2010. It was a very different game then. I remember the blogs I followed with such devotion and the friendships I developed with their authors from across the world. Everything was so new and exciting. I checked my blog incessantly for comments and new content. Those blogosphere relationships were as real to me as any here in New York. But now that so many of those friends have stopped blogging, I find myself pining for the good old days, for the same sense of community I once had. I'm realizing that there are still plenty of new opportunities to be had but there is much more work to be done to get them.

 For the first time in nearly 4 years I feel like the new kid in school again with my blog. I find myself visiting new sites in hopes of making new blog friends. I want to post regularly and provide relevant, meaningful content. I want to collaborate with inspiring individuals and have my voice heard again. I want to reestablish a community of fashion illustration lovers on the web. I guess what I'm attempting to get at here is that I'm no longer sitting around passive waiting for people to come to me. I'm doing exactly what my instructor Dalia said. I'm once again creating and manifesting my own opportunities. After all, good things come to those who hustle, and so they should. I hope you will join me in creating opportunities for yourself too.

Much love,
Meag xx

Rosie Assoulin: Stripe Sensation

Hello My Loves, 

Once again I find myself working late night at my computer and testing my own creative parameters. Having illustrated these Rosie Assoulin figures for the upcoming Buenos Aires postcard, I wanted to explore some new compositional possibilities. Rosie is undoubtedly my most favourite new NYC designer. The construction of the garments for the FW14 collection and bold, graphic choice of color lend themselves to such interesting visual arrangements. I'm still trying to settle my final composition for the BA postcard, but giving these figures a test run is helping to clear my mind a little more on how it's going to settle. I just keep reminding myself...learn from everything, always a work in progress. Stay tuned because the postcard is almost ready!!

Much love,
Meag xx

Work in Progress: Postcard from Buenos Aires

Good Evening My Loves,

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend! I've been feeling SO inspired lately, with the redesign of Travel Write Draw, my Blogging for Fashion Business course at FIT, and some much needed critical feedback on my illustration portfolio. I've been painting, practicing, and experimenting more than ever before these days and I can't wait to share the results with you here. One thing I don't do often on Travel Write Draw, is showcase to you all the process behind my pieces. After painting the illustration for Postcard from Rio de Janeiro, and my FIT classmates wanting to know more about the behind the scenes of its creation, I thought it would be really interesting to show the steps that go into illustrating an original Meagan Morrison piece.

Above are four images I snapped this weekend while conceptualizing and drafting my upcoming Buenos Aires postcard. The creative juices are flowing, as are the watercolor inks, and I couldn't be happier. My process for this piece went a little something like this:

1. Collect Inspiration Tears - After returning from this BIG trip, I immediately engrossed myself in all the inspiration, imagery, research, and trend forecast reports I could find on Buenos Aires, in combination with my own photographs and illustrations. I started to narrow in on one or two key concepts from the trip, things that really spoke to me. Ultimately what I hope to achieve in creating these postcards is a very curated diary of the very best of a city. I want my readers to feel as though they were there right along with me. In the end, it was the beautiful colored houses of La Boca, and sensual tango dancers of Buenos Aires, that stayed with me in my mind and heart long after I left. I also couldn't help but envision the stunning sculptural silhouettes of Rosie Assoulin's FW14 collection sashaying through the city streets. Everything combined felt like the best depiction I could offer of this culturally rich place.

2. Start Drafting - Once I figured out that La Boca would be the backdrop to my contemporary Rosie Assoulin fashion figures, I started taking my references and cracking open my sketchbook. I really wanted to push my boundaries with this postcard. La Boca was such a visually stimulating place filled with so much color and character, I really wanted to bring that to life. I grabbed some colored paper and started to collage the big primary colorblocks of La Boca. With the figures I started to imagine them layered onto the collage and having their bodies defined by both the background and graphic stripes of their garments. This influenced what lines I decided to include and exclude while sketching them. Once I settled on the final silhouettes in my sketchbook, I transferred the figures onto tracing paper to prepare to paint.

3. Take Sketches to Final - Since I don't have a lightbox, I always use the traditional pencil transfer method and draw over my traced final to get the led on my watercolor paper. I went over that lightly with a brown colored pencil and started my favorite process - PAINTING!! This is where the magic happens. I was careful to leave my whites, truly white this time because the garments where going to be completed during the final stages in photoshop.

4. Scan, Photoshop, and Post - When the final watercolors and La Boca collage were complete, I took them to the scanner to then be dropped into Photoshop for their final touch stage. This is where I adjust the levels, colors, proportions, hue, saturation, and begin the process of layering the figures onto the background. This step is truly the problem solving step. You are the master behind your composition. I had to really play around with it to make the figures work in combination with the colorful collage of La Boca.

And there you have a glimpse into the process behind a single postcard here on Travel Write Draw. Now it's time to import all the photos and prep the content for the actual postcard post. Are you excited?! I know I certainly am. The photographs I took in Buenos Aires are some of the most beautiful I have from around the world. Watch this space because Postcard from Buenos Aires is coming soon!! Oh and don't forget, if you have any questions about my process for this piece or any other piece, just leave your comments below.

Much love,
Meag xx

Step Into Easter, Step Into Spring...

Happy Easter Sunday Lovelies, 

I'm hoping you all had a gorgeous day with your family or a blissful 4/20 (depending on your choice of worship). I'm sitting here in my family's kitchen back in Stouffville Ontario Canada, writing as the sun is setting on a beautiful April's day. My relatives and sister have left to return to their respective homes, and I'm listening to the unfamiliar sound of silence - something I don't hear often, if ever, in crazy NYC.

Easter always makes me feel renewed. It marks the time of year where everything feels new, from the earth thawing from a cruel winter, to seeing your own bare legs and arms in Spring dresses or sleeveless tops again. This year, Easter brought a much needed return home and an even more exciting development, the update to Travel Write Draw!! After 3.5 years, it was due.

For those of you who have been following my blog since July 2011, or anytime thereafter, you've probably become pretty familiar with the old template I had up here. It became clear to me, over the last 6 months or so, that my illustration ability and style had far outgrown the frame of Travel Write Draw....and so the transformation began. I've spent my Easter weekend not only emotionally regrouping but also career catapulting and I'm so excited to share the results with you all here.

Stay tuned for some new blog branding design work to come, but until then I leave you with this Cadbury Mini Eggs x Burberry inspired Easter heel I envisioned and illustrated. Since my Easter Sunday involved very little chocolate OR sweets, I'm absolutely drooling over the thought of one of those mini eggs melting in my mouth (dear lord give me strength)!!

Much love,
Meag xx

Perth Style x TWD #MBFW Australia Top 3 Looks

Good Evening My Loves,

I'm SO excited to share with you my collaboration with Jordana Ripp, of Australian fashion bible Perth Style, for our coverage of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia 2014 this past week. Jordana and I met through the blogosphere after she discovered my portrait of Kelly Cutrone about a year ago. When she made her way to NYC this past July, we promptly met for a fantastic West Village dinner at Cafe Cluny, followed by drinks, dancing in the rain, an interview with me on Perth Style...and well, the rest is history! With all the buzz swirling over Australian fashion these days, I knew exactly who to call upon to cover last weeks shows with me. I absolutely adore Jordana, and not just for her impeccable sartorial eye. Check out her Top 3 picks from the week illustrated below:

Alice McCall

Jordana: "Alice McCall is very feminine and sexy but with a youthful sort of seductive innocence that resonates through each collection. This AM look has flirty flow that I adore and is very much in that borderline effortless lingerie look that is trending at the moment."

Me: For each illustration I tried to find an element from the runway show that felt novel and iconic. With Alice McCall it was undoubtedly the watercolor, pop art, lip print she had appearing throughout the collection. It felt fresh and quirky which I loved.

Talulah

Jordana: "Talulah always produces fun pieces that just make you want to live at the beach. They have a strong swimwear and coverups line, as well as a ready to wear, that often have fun, prominent, intermingling prints. Talulah is such a great Aussie lifestyle example of fusing trending fashion with the laid back beach/holiday vibe. The look I chose was super fun, almost summertime festival chic - I thought the styling was really well done too."

Me: For Talulah it was clearly all about the funky layers of jewelry and that great, graphic print. To complement the illustration I took reference from their animal pattern to add a little more contrast to the look.

Toni Maticevski

Jordana: "Toni Maticevski's work is clean, modern, beautiful and detailed - very sophisticated and elegant. This particular look I chose is classic TM but I love that it's a little edgier with a mid-drift cut and exaggerated slit."

Me: Toni's show ended with his girls walking down the runway with flowers in their mouthes. It became a Top 10 "need to know" from #MBFWA on Vogue Australia. I knew for this illustration I had to incorporate the girls' edible orchids.

And there you have Perth Style x TWD #MBFW Australia Top 3 Looks rounded up. I'm so excited to show all the new content I have coming up for the blog (including a very imminent blog design update!!). Stay tuned.

Much love,
Meag xx

A Video Love Letter to My Followers...

TWD's Rio De Janeiro Top 10

Living Authentically

Good Evening My Loves,

I have a lot to share with you tonight, so let me start by saying that I have been marinating this post in my head and in my heart for the past week or so now, and I finally feel ready to sit down and write it. I'm here in my tiny little room in the West Village, cramped between fashion magazines, and yesterday's laundry, hovering over my computer in silence. I'm quiet because something big just happened today - frankly I should have expected it because the skies are calling for a very tumultuous April 2014. Regardless, I didn't see it coming. Today my team at work was called in for a huddle and our Creative Director announced her departure from our company, my company, and I was absolutely, positively, SHOCKED. Just when you think you know how everything is going to play out in life, a hurricane hits, and washes your sandcastle away.

Obviously I haven't known about this for even 24hrs yet so you're probably wondering how I've been conceiving of this post for a week then. Well I guess it came full circle when I asked her how she felt about leaving not only our company but New York as well. "Living here is like being in a constant swirl, inside the eye of a tornado, and now...I just want to be on the outside looking in" she said, along with classic, adorable hand gestures that only she can make. And suddenly it hit me, how much more of the madness can I take?! Clearly she is at peace to let it go, she's done her time here and she's ready to say goodbye. So after nearly 5 years here, what exactly am I still holding onto? What more do I feel like I need to prove in this city?

For those of you who don't live in New York, the only way I can describe it is like being in the most toxic love hate relationship you've ever had. It's the boyfriend (or girlfriend) you just die to be around, do anything you can to accommodate, just to have 5 minutes of their time (even if it means squeezing into claustrophobic subway cars or apartments), who only ever gives you just enough to keep you interested, but never enough to keep you truly fulfilled, is completely inconsistent (hello transit system!!), totally high maintenance, and expensive to date, and is always unfailingly wavering between the extremes (oppressively hot or cold, never in between). It's the relationship that should have ended years ago, but the chemistry is too much of a high to let it go.

I should note that this really isn't everyone's experience here and I should not assume or generalize that it is. But my time here has been a battle, a boxing match that just won't end. Having to get a new visa for every year I've been here certainly doesn't help matters...actually that has been the primary problem...that and health care. So yes, my boss announcing her departure today inevitably lead me to this post titled Living Authentically because I loved how clearly she was doing just that, following her truth, and how much it called into question whether I was still following mine.

When I was away in South America a week and a half ago it really, really, REALLY dawned on me just how hard life in New York is. It's only magnified by this winter that just won't end. I can remember sitting on the beach of Ipanema around 10 am and painting from my travel watercolor kit and makeshift coconut-as-water-cup and feeling completely at peace. Obviously life is not a vacation, and moments like this aren't all that common even at the best of times. But more than that, there were no angry pedestrians climbing over one another to reach the subway, couples breaking into full-on arguments in the streets, random strangers bursting into hyperventilating tears over roommate or career drama. Instead there were passionate sidewalk kisses, and half naked bodies strolling from the beach. Life was much slower and nobody seemed to mind what the hell was happening in the supposed "centre of the universe".

I hate sounding so anti-New York...and maybe it's not even about the city, but the people, the collective mindset that this place is all that matters. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere they say. That might very well be true. This city does attract and keep some of the most incredible talent the world over. I guess my real issue is then with the lack of authenticity. Here people feel like they have something to prove. Nobody willingly moves to New York without the feeling of needing to prove something. And maybe that for them IS living authentically. But I guess I'm just tired of the noise, the chaos, of one-up conversations about who you work for, who you know...are there not more meaningful things in life?! What happened to just being real?!

You know the proverb "dance like nobody is watching, love as though you have never been hurt before, sing as though no one can hear you, and live as though heaven is on earth"? Well the thing is, when you're living inside the fish bowl, the centre of the world, and all eyes are on you constantly, it is really, really hard to do those things period lol. Because truthfully people ARE watching. We are living in a time of psuedo-stalking, voyeurism, thanks to facebook and blogging and instagraming and tweeting. It just becomes harder to remember to live for yourself.

I guess what I'm hoping to accomplish in writing this then is to show you that I'm only human. I have fears and frustrations and I'm not afraid to show them. Because this for me IS what it means to live authentically and I don't ever want to live any other way. I needed to write this to remind myself that I, nor do you, have anything to prove. All you have to do is follow your truth. Live with integrity and the rest will just fall into place. I'm leaving you with this video from Ipanema Beach because it stands as a reminder to me of my truth. I'm sending so much positivity and love your way and want to thank you all for reading and supporting me from wherever you are in the world. I hope that you will join me in living authentically too.

Much love,
Meag xx