You may have seen them at a wedding — artists at a table, sketching and painting rapidly to capture guests in their finery. The take-home portraits they create become a party favor, a gift from the bride and groom.
The three local live fashion illustrators we spoke with consider weddings their bread and butter, though they also ply their trade at corporate functions, fundraisers, private parties and a range of events from retail openings to fashion shows.
They work mostly alone but sometimes with other illustrators. They have a love-hate relationship with deadline pressure. They all grew up loving art.
"I spent a lot of time in grade school drawing fashion sketches in my notebook paper margin," says Jennifer Marlin (jennifermarlin.com), who went on to study illustration at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
They fell into the career by luck.
"It was a total accident," says Claire Ward (clairewardillustration.com). "I got my degree in apparel design from the University of Minnesota, but the illustration component was always my favorite part of the process."
After she graduated, a friend was producing an event and asked Ward to do her first-ever live fashion illustrations.
"It snowballed from there," she says.
