Sarmilla is the design force behind Ocha & Garth - featured here a couple of years ago (link below). She has recently been showing some of her style illustration on Instagram and kindly drew a couple inspired by images of me.
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| Grey Fox by Sarmilla of Sr Journal |
Keen to find out what drives such talent, I asked her to tell us more about her new business Sr Journal. Sarmilla tells about her love of fashion and the inequalities she's experienced making her way into the business of menswear.
GF: Hi Sarmilla. You've been featured before on the blog - would you tell us who you are and your background?
SR: I'm Sarmilla; my background comes from and trained as a Menswear designer from St Martins, and RCA. So I have been in the industry for some time and it has been an experience that I don't think I will ever forget
GF: I noticed recently that you've started to produce lovely fashion and style illustrations. How did you come to do this? Are you a trained artist?
SR: I've always loved doing illustrations. During the lockdown I went back, got my art equipment out and drew. It was amazing and getting totally lost in creating it helped to escape from what was going on. The digital illustrations have become a habitat of drawing on my mobile.
It has been a hard road in trying to be part of "MENSWEAR" as a designer. Drawing illustrations has and was mainly out of frustration of not being able to get a job as a designer in menswear or been part of the creative side of menswear the barriers that I use to face were unbelievable. Everyone of us has struggled in this trade but some of us had to work much harder (and still are) and face a lot of crap that would be about our culture background.
Anna Wintour first put her hand up in saying, "Yes, we have not allowed BAME to be part of fashion." It takes a lot of courage to do this to own up to the mistake. My illustration comes from this I think; throughout my career trying my best to stay in something that I love to do beside ignorance thrown that I use to face I suppose no one will ever understand but it has made me respect and adore Menswear even more.
So my illustrations are from that. As you will see none of the men have skin tone and I choose it to be that way because to me skin tone should not or ever be important to anyone or in any trade. It's about the person, the CREATIVITY that should stand out not someone's skin I have yet to understand why it does?
Trained as an artist I would say more as a Menswear Designer but my love for art has always been there.
GF: Are you influenced by the work of other artists or illustrators? Whose work do you admire and why?
SR: My parents would be my influencers. My Father is the biggest influence in my life and menswear. He used to wear amazing tailored suits and from my mum, the colours of the sarees she wears is how I learned to understand colour from a very early age. As for artists, I admire their work and that to me is much greater than being influenced.
The two on my top list of Illustrators would be David Shrigley for saying the truth in a humorous way and Sameer Kulavoor an Indian artist in Mumbai also does the same. Artists there are too many on my list but the ones on my top list are the following: Jason Pollaok, Amrita Sher Gil, Yves Klein, Jean Michel Basquiat, Jack Whitten, Roy Lichtenstein and Salvador Dahli.
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| All images of Grey Fox by Sr Journal |
GF: Your work is available as greetings cards (see image below) and I assume that you are available for commissions. Please tell us more about that. How can you be contacted?
SR: Yes it was a bit of an accidental process I would say as my Mum and friends were telling me to convert these illustrations and all were complaining about not finding stylish cards for men so I went and produced them. I still draw on my Samsung phone using my finger as my paint brush.
I suppose something positive has to come out of all of this. All of the cards are available on my Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SRJournal. As for Commission work yes I would be totally up for that it would be great to do. Anyone can contact me by my SR_JOURNAL instagram it would be nice to hear from you all:)).
Blog feature on Ocha & Garth.
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| Greetings cards from Sr Journal |
