Bonnie and Clyde

This graphite pencil drawing ‘Sans Titre – 30-07-18’ depicts American celebrity moviestar Faye Dunaway. After my of drawing of Diana Ross and the immediate sale of it I thought I make another one. , depicting Faye Dunaway. Of course she is a great actress in many movies. However, her role in Bonnie and Clyde has become a legend in its own right. Likewise did I like this photograph that says it all about the content of the movie. Surely it shows an astringent, youthly confident teen gangster on a steady way to her demise. Great acting and luckily for us she kept on living after the release of this epic movie.

Artistic Approach

Firstly I was captured by the highlights at the top and the bottom. I decided to keep the planes straight, putting the stress on her tough cookie character. Then again, I did not straighten out too much of the lines and planes for that reason. Instead, I kept the look of a kind of a elaborated sketch rather than to refine it and soften it too much. The aim was that such would add to the flavor of the pose she strikes. Just as if she is about to jump straight into yet another dangerous endeavour with her accomplice Clyde.

False Light

Personally I like the aforementioned two light spots: on her beret and the lower part of her spencer. Basically they are the only white spaces in the drawing. All other regions are toned more darkly. Therefor I use this one to demonstrate students something important. Often lighter appearing sports in fact are not very light at all. Many people training in the art of tonality make tones relative towards eachother, misjudging them completely. Tones are absolute and carved in stone.

Graphite pencil drawing (Pentel 0.5 mm, 3B) on Canson Bristol paper (21 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm) – A4 format)

Artist: Corné Akkers