Neo Deco | Rhapsody in Blue – 2026-08-27

A New Element

This pastel pencil drawing ‘Neo Deco | Rhapsody in Blue – 2026-08-27’ introduces a new element into my cubist drawings. One strong color that serves as a ‘spot color’. In this case that would be cyan, dominating the scene. Let me tell you all about it. In my  last pastel drawing I already decreased the amount of color (relations). Lookin back, the one before contains too many. You see, when you talk to me, the conversation tends to wander everywhere. By nature I’m very anecdotal, and this has brought me many ideas. I have so many associations running around in my brain. One thought leads to another and this enabled me even to complete my complex oil painting ‘In Hoc Signo’. A painting, well balanced, full of whacky turns, stating my environmental regard. However, I took extra care not to have it disintegrate under the weight of the subject(s).

My Struggles with Controlling Color

What I do find very hard is to control color. At Brugman Art in Voorburg I often discuss this with my students. As stated, colors are relations and the more you incorporate, the more they act like a ‘free-for-all’. Therefore, I have decided to put myself on a diet and refrain from using too many sorts. Then something came to mind. These Blue Note album covers from the 1950s and 1960s, such as John Coltrane’s Blue Train album cover. Black, white and blue, that’s it. And, of course, the Ami sketching paper which is tan by the way. It lingered with me all week, and I even dreamt of it. In my imagination I saw a block of cyan behind a female form in black and white. There it was, yesterday I drew the female forms and today I filled in the blue.

Conflictuous or Simply Complementary?

Upon my word, I like it very much. It is strong, bold and contradicts all things I learnt about color theory – or did I? Such as repeating colors in the positive and negative space, so they communicate. For example, when I do portraits and I have a green background, I also use green in the portrait. And perhaps a whiff of skin hues in the background. Such creates harmony and embedment. This drawing creates a nice little conflict though and that was a surprise. But now I come to think of it more thoroughly, I see what’s going on. The tan paper and the cyan blue talk to each other almost like a simultaneous contrast. Through this, the tan paper tends to become orangy. You see, it’s present in the overall body structure, complementary contrasting the cyan. In fact, not very conflictuous yet simply complementary elementary, my dear Watson!

Keeping a Rough Edge

Now, my thoughts on the figure’s features. Although the reference showed a curvy lady, her pose revealed many playful angular shapes. Therefore, I used only straight contour delineations. The pose was inspired by a photo by John Everard, whose pictures I have never seen until recently. A great photographer. However, I changed some aspects and abstracted it quite a bit. Last but not least, the blue square. I didn’t render it too perfectly. These days people might think it’s AI they are looking at. Instead, I kept a rough, crumbly edge.

Technical Details

Pastel pencil drawing on Ami Sketching paper (‘KBB’) – 21 x 29.7 cm

Artist: Corné Akkers

Sales info: info@corneakkers.com

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