Geesje Kwak 13-08-21, Drawing, Pencil/Colored Pencil on Paper, 2021

Corné Akkers  

After I drew the portrait of Geesje Kwak last month, I discovered another picture taken by Breitner. It is slightly different and shows a larger part of her body rather than her face only. Occasionally, a motif comes around that keeps popping up in one’s head. Geesje certainly keeps inspiring me multiple times. Next to her lovely facial features and slender, youthful, artistic appearance, there was another reason to meet her once again. Perhaps it is the desire to study fabrics, folds, and garments. They show lovely angular but also rounded planes and linear structures. I think they fit in my cubist search perfectly, and frankly, I have not employed them much in my work.

Sharp Light and Dark Division
The reference picture showed Geesje in an overexposed garden, perhaps Breitner’s own backyard. Consequently, the surface division ensures a sharp division between very light and extremely dark planes with sharp contour delineations. Although—or maybe thanks to—the grainy quality of the picture, it was dead easy for me to abstract the scene. The photo abstracted a lot of the fun part for me anyway. I made sure the overlit parts communicated with the negative space around them, embedding Geesje in the garden.

Sparky Bushes
The only thing worrying me was the bushy material behind her and some kind of fence hovering over her head. It did not contribute any value, but without any background, she looks like a thin nail. There simply would be too much negative space around her. In the big plane to the left of her body, the bushes were most prominent. I extrapolated directions of the plane division in her dress towards that left part by means of some linear structures. This way, I was able to sketch some sparky light and dark planes around them. They represent the light and dark on the bushy leaves in a stylized way.

Graphite pencil (Sakura 0.5 mm, Pentel 4B) drawing on Talens Bristol paper (21 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm).