This is an exercise in drawing objectively ie not influenced by personal feelings or opinions. The coursework explains the aim is to “achieve a drawing that has a high degree of visual accuracy and is technically controlled*.
At first I consider this to be fairly straight forward. The choice of material is a given ie, shoe, umbrella, pair of trousers, pair of glasses, hat.
I tend to wear a hat outdoors all year round; in the winter to keep cosy and in the summer to protect against the UV rays. So the hat is the chosen as a drawing.
To think around the use and purposes of head wear a spider diagram proves helpful:-
At first after completing this I decide to draw a practical gardening/walking hat. However suddenly something prompts an idea. Being the Easter weekend (11.4.2020) it seems entirely appropriate to draw a fashionable hat symbolic of an Easter bonnet. Although this idea is not generated precisely at the time of the spider diagram, I feel the process of going through this step of idea formulation instead of just launching into the exercise has led to a more interesting subject than initially intended.
So I search in cupboards for a suitable “bonnet” that is not too daunting or complicated to draw and place it on a while cloth as recommended to observe it more easily and be less distracted by any background.
An exploration of the image through sketching takes place:-
This is light careful sketching trying to understand the proportions ie,the height of the dome of the hat in comparison to the edge, the depth of the rim, and the placement area of the bow. The site of the roses etc., the length of the ribbon tails and so forth.
I find that holding the hat helps to identify the surfaces further. This is not a straw hat however there is texture in the the circular stitching, the rim is well defined and fine netting is an additional luxury. The bow will require softer smoother pencil marks and I trial these out. I am not certain how I shall distinguish between the circular stitching on the hat and the netting.
The drawing above is the final piece. I feel I have been able to solve the difficulty depicting the netting fairly accurately by using dark but well defined lines and pencil points for the joins. Perhaps looking at proportions the brim of the hat could have been expanded further. The detail in the roses is difficult as the petals are so intertwined so although not 100% identical to the original photo I have provided a semblance to the roses in an objectively way as possible, by shaping rounded petals and shading.
I may have struggled with the proportions a little whilst keeping to the requirements of using an A4 paper. The brim of the hat could have been expanded upon further and the dome height lower and broader. The composition could have been more interesting by changing the direction of both or one or the bow tails, so instead of lying flat, they curve a little.
Overall my drawing is not quite the same as the photo however it is a reasonable rendering and that feels satisfying and there is some depth in the shading which gives the drawing a sense of realism too.
Although this has proved more involved than I first anticipated I find this exercise is a pleasant exercise to do and a lovely of way of celebrating the Easter season.
Adelaide Art 