I just began to work on drawing the pattern on the scarf. This is where mistakes in my drawing of the basic shapes come back to haunt me. If, for example, the scarf is too wide, the patterns won’t fit correctly within their boundaries. Of course, I know that if the patterns aren’t perfectly correct, it’s fine. No one will know! I do, however, like to get them pretty close. It makes observing and painting easier for me. The shape of the circle on the right was tricky. I’ve gotten so used to drawing symmetrical ellipses, that a ‘bent’ ellipse was difficult.
Below, I’ve started work on another section of the scarf. When I began, I drew the design as a perfect circle. It wasn’t looking right, though. I realized that the scarf is cut on the bias, and that the weight of it draping down stretched it a little. As an experiment, I drew the top hemisphere with a compass, added a a bit of vertical length, then drew the bottom hemisphere using a lower compass point. This effectively stretched the circle. The two parallel lines bisecting the circle show where I stretched it. I’ll erase these guide-lines. I think it looks fine now.
Below, I made a first attempt at drawing the bow in the necklace.
The drawing is just about at the stage where I can pause and do my value study in oil. At my next session, I’ll work on the beads a bit more and continue with the scarf patterns, but I won’t finalize anything until I’ve done the study. If I end up wanting to change the composition as a result of the study, I don’t want to have wasted a lot of time drawing things that would then need to be re-drawn.
Linda Mann Artist 