Hat Drawing Tutorial, Steps 1 and 2

Phase 1 of these hat drawings:  First make a rather complete ink drawing. 

I used a black Pilot V-5 Hi-Tecpoint 0.5 pen that is more or less waterproof after completely dry.  This is how I started all the hat drawings.  The more texture and detail, the better.  (I can't buy this pen in the US, can't even order it from anywhere in the US.  Why is this?  It's a great pen, but I have bought my last two batches in Paris and Barcelona and was finally able to order twelve from England, but the postage was killing.  It's a pain to have to go to such lengths to buy this pen!)

(Okay, a brief veer into the amaryllis, which has started to change in that what looked like a tall leaf is actually turning out to be some kind of leaf covering that is now drying up and growing transparent.)

In the middle, a detail of the hat, showing the amount of texture that seems to work well.  (And then one of the tulips in its new taller more leafy stage.)

So find a knitted hat and go do a detailed textural drawing of it.  Now I'm going to go paint over my two textural hat drawings and show you step two.

Step 2:  This is the scary part of this drawing, when you lose all control.  You must do it soon after making the textural drawing while the ink is still somewhat wet.  (Note that if you use a pen with NON- waterproof ink you can wait as long as you want to do step 2 because the ink will still wet up.)  I use clean water and a #12 round watercolor brush, the only brush I ever use, but you can use whatever brush you have and enjoy using for watercolor drawing.  It helps if it is a round brush and one that holds a good point.  I begin in the least textural areas, such as the pompom and the inside flannel lining panels.  I wash the brush frequently to keep the ink from completely blacking out the drawing.

The same goes for the detail of the knitted hat, shown to the left.    Tomorrow I'll show how to add the color with white gouache and watercolors.  It's good to let the watery mess dry thoroughly before continuing.  So put this away for now and go get a tube or jar of waterproof white opaque watercolor, called gouache.  Don't worry if your nice drawing is now a mess.  Mine is too, and I never have any confidence that it's going to come out right;  but something alchemical happens next!