Roundism (Tribute to Anita Ekberg) – 22-06-23

A Second Tribute

This graphite pencil drawing ‘Roundism (Tribute to Anita Ekberg) – 22-06-23’ is not my first homage to her. Some years ago I made a first one. People must have fallen in love with that one for I sold it quickly. Consequently I still sell prints of that drawing regularly. So I had this idea of turning it into an oil painting. But you know, it goes all the way with me all the time. So many ideas and so little time. Mostly I will be caught by a new idea I try to capture frantically in graphite. Once in a while I take one of the drawings from the stockpile and turn it into an oil. However, not this time … yet again!

Take on the Challenge

The reason is I’m inspired doing swirls and cubes in a new way, resulting in this Neo Deco series. I am quite content with the last drawings, swinging from straight cubist planes, curves to solarized appearances. I have returned to using Ingres paper more often since I feel comfortable with the grainy structure supporting my cubist styling. Browsing through some old pictures I collected I saw the one I saved of this great moviestar. It’s photographed in clean cut hefty tonal values. I remembered saving that one for a rainy day, still figuring out what to do with it. The reference picture is an art work in its own right. For a longer period of time I simply couldn’t image adding value to it. There is not a sound reason for postponing intentions forever though. Time to take on the challenge.

Slight Cubist Styling

Solarisation didn’t work because of the quantity of dark tones. The scarce light tones would become too dark, giving the depiction an almost unrecognizable appearance. For days I pondered what to do. I tried making the picture considerably lighter and that did the trick. I saw some tonal nuances appearing I could style cubistically. In the beginning I had some straight lines in it but soon erase them. Instead I put the stress on the flow of her curves, even extrapolating them outside her body. Hence my addition to an already outstanding art work is not as much as you would expect from me. It’s enought though. Unfortunately, I don’t know the photographer’s name. Do you?

Graphite pencil (Faber Castell Pitt Graphite Matt pencil 14B) drawing on Fabriano Ingres paper (21 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm)

Artist: Corné Akkers