Solarized Roundism 24-02-23, Drawing, Pencil/Colored Pencil on Paper, 2023

Corné Akkers  

Blue Velvet Reprise This graphite drawing 'Solarized Roundism' – 02-24 comes from the last session with my usual model. Solarization is back on the menu and I simply loved using this technique again. I so visited a local fabric shop, here in The Hague. I saw this magnificent piece of blue velvet there. It is almost identical to the one I used for my oil painting under the same name. It is considerably larger in size however. That is what I wanted: a fabric much larger than the one I had, almost like sheets. There are several reasons for this. For years, I undressed women and depicted them like this. Now, I am interested in fabrics these days, so I wrap them in fabrics or place them on them. Another reason, particularly concerning the blue quality: it beautifully highlights the skin tone of my model. Solarize It Solarization as a theme, I have used it a few times before. However, I like to vary as I have explained in the past. After Slava Ukraini – 02-15-23 and neo-deco, I wanted to do something different. In fact, I was curious to see what my Faber Castell Pitt graphite pencil would do with this theme. Everything is a matter of partial inversion of tonal values and hatching the paper to complete darkness. See how this would contrast the highlighted areas. I must say that I am perfectly surprised. It was much easier to achieve these tonal extremes than in my last solarized graphite project from last year. Hooray for Faber Castell. I am a big fan of these pencils now.

Cubism A result from model sessions can be rather unpredictable. Sometimes, you will get beautiful poses unexpectedly. These are the best. This time, I was lucky. Her pose was in perfect harmony with the folds of satin and seemed to almost imitate them. This goes for the tonal variations concerning the curves. I did not have to add much Cubist stylization, which was the initial plan. This can be seen in the delineation of the broken contours on the thigh and the horizontal and vertical guidelines. I established these to fix the proportions of the bodily features. I decided to keep them because they emphasize the abstract quality of the result. It is more abstract than it seems. Through the strong tonal variations, it looks rather photographic however.

Graphite pencil (Faber Castell Pitt Graphite Matt pencil 14B) drawing Talens Bristol paper (21 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm) Artist: Corné Akkers :: Drawing :: Cubism :: This piece is accompanied by an official certificate of authenticity signed by the artist :: To hang : No :: Signed : Yes :: Signature location : bottom left :: Paper : Landscape :: Original : Yes :: Framed : No