Roundism – 20-01-23

First Roundism of This Year

This graphite pencil drawing ‘Roundism – 20-01-23’ is the first one of its kind this year. After ‘Venus Lamenting – 13-01-23’ I wanted to do a similar one. However, it turned out to become something completely different. I thought I’d exploit a good idea further. That was to include a frame inside a drawing. As is the case in many other works I soon realized I wasn’t keen on repeating myself that quickly. It felt almost like pulling a cheap trick whereas the idea itself I found to be original. Maybe later. There were other reasons too though.

Squarish Position

Last Thursday I had my regular model come over to pose for me. I had prepared a story book of poses I would like her to strike. One of them was inspired by a pose Madonna once struck for a cover photo. There she kept her arms and body in a squarish position and I found that simply fascinating. It was unlike the pose for Roundism 26-11-21 but something similar. In fact I used it once or at least something alike, like Yeast – 18-09-19. When I come to think of it, it might my regular model’s idea in the first place. Anyway, lately I saw a similar pose somewhere on a website. Time to do another one, I guess.

Counterbalancing

Therefor I had my model put her left arm vertically as well as her right lower leg. With her right arm I had her construct some kind of a bodily rectangle. Initial findings during the first stage induced the feeling of all things round. Then it hit me all of a sudden. The rectangular pose screamed for counterbalancing it with round forms. Hence, my own roundism style imposed itself on me once again.

Realist Feel

Initially the roundish shapes were a bit abstract and I had the plan to do a heavily abstracted female form. On the other hand, grace to my new studio lamps, I had great razor light coming from the back. The result is a curious mixture of chiaroscuro feel, even a realist feel. The abstraction and extrapolated curves are not forgotten though. As such my model is more abstracted than a first impression lets on.

Graphite pencil (Faber Castell Pitt Graphite Matt pencil 14B) drawing Talens Bristol paper (21 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm)

Artist: Corné Akkers