A Davy Crockett Hat

This pastel drawing ‘Model Session – 18-11-25-1’ is a special one. Imagine a young man wearing a Davy Crockett hat. Such a coonskin cap to use the proper word , is a sight to see indeed. Never saw it in real life though, only in movies. Well, not in The Netherlands, that’s for sure. Our male model didn’t come from here but from Denmark but I’n not sure if it’s common over there either. Anyway, we had this young man over last year and we kept him on our list to invite him once more. He could sit perfectly still and that’s always a great quality we life model sketchers and painters admire in models. Then one of the participants asked me if could ask him to keep on this most impressive headgear. He was happy to oblige and there it was: our first pose would become a sitting one.

Hairy Business

At the same time my initial plan to apply my bit of cubism ran straight down the drain. With all these lush and thin hairs cubism simply wouldn’t do justice to the hat. By its very nature it was the focal point. To render all these protruding hairs spiky was not something I was looking forward to. Besides that, The hairs on the cap and his own hairdo underneath were intriguing enough. See, if I could try to capture them in a realistic way. They almost seemed to flow into each other. The rest was easy. His features I managed to capture immediately and concisely. How wonderful this blueish gray Ingres paper is. Basically, the only thing I had to focus on: the hairy structures and the highlights. The midtones were already present. Back home I elaborated the hairs a bit. Great session!

Pastel drawing on Hahnemühle Dürer Ingres-Bütten Night Blue paper (48 x 62,5 x 0.1 cm)

Artist: Corné Akkers

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