Claudia is one of my talented students and she is about to turn 60 years old. Unfortunately I cannot give it to her personally because a planned surprise party is thwarted by Corona. Some luck however. The drawing will be included in a sort of liber amoricum and at first opportunity next year the party’s on for real. Anyway, I hope she likes it. She is a wonderful character and even though becoming of age is still an attractive blonde woman. Great material for a portrait.
Since this is going to be a present I decided not to abstract it too much. There are hits of roundism though such as in the facial musculature and the direction of the locks of hair. Her daughter sent me the reference picture which in fact did not focus on the facial features too much but rather on the blond hair. I decided to keep the dark tones in the face even though in the picture they are a bit darker. By sheer chance The ribbed shirt reflects the structure of her hair. That was a bonus.
Of late I feel like doing more portraits, even though they won’t have to be very realistic. I am planning a risque kind of nude on Julia Gómez Avilés with a strong expressionist portrait. Julia Filament also is a muse of body, spirit and portrait. Surely Geesje Kwak lended her facial features to my artistic tries most willingly. It is almost as if I long for more than a formalistic approach nowadays. Last Sunday I paid a visit to the Kunstmuseum to see the work of Paula Rego. It made me realize that my personal cubist style called roundism can use a psychological layer by means of a portrait. Strangely coincidentially this is for I already included a portrait in my last graphite pencil drawing ‘Solarized Roundism – 26-11-21’. I found Paula’s portraits penetrating even though her feel for anatomy I thought to be a bit wonky.
Graphite pencil drawing (Sakura 0.5 mm, Pentel 4B) on Talens Bristol paper (21 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm) – A4 format)
Artist: Corné Akkers