Creating Neo Deco – 08-09-24

Website link: https://corneakkers.com/neo-deco-08-09-24/
Printable: https://corneakkers.com/product/printable-neo-deco-08-09-24/

A New Colored One

This colored pencil drawing ‘Neo Deco – 08-09-24’ holds the middle between minimalism and cubism. After the last one I was looking for something different. Then I was posting on these new sites called Payhip, Fourthwall and The Hug. There I uploaded some of my drawings in my Golden series. Some of them were executed on Talens Toned Paper, for example ‘Golden Brown – 24-08-20’. I always liked the concept of that one and I thought I’d make a new version. Not with a golden shine this time though.

Skip the Mid and Darker Tones

The idea was to go for a body position in which all mid tones and darker tones are the paper. That is, the dark blue tone and color the paper contains. This way you can almost totally skip them. There was this perfect reference picture that inspired me. Once again one of Walter Bird’s photo’s from 1938 showed a typical art deco heavily lit bodyscape. Almost abstract in its sort. The female form showed only highlights and no mid tones at all. In fact her backside isn’t visible at all. I was intrigued by that one for quite some time ago. It was different from my own photo I took for Golden Brown but I felt an experiment coming up.

A Flow Really

As you can see the actual depiction runs from the upper left to the lower right corner. In some kind of a flow really. The initial idea I had was to use a series of straight linear and curved structures. Make them extremely light only and skip the rest. However, the preliminary result I found a bit too minimalistic, something I always fear. Not saying much really. Maybe I’m just too anecdotal by nature to begin with. It’s a great thing to know one’s weaknesses as well. Consequently I have learnt to add something to the mix when it’s too few. Also to undo stuff when it get’s overproduced. Anway, I added just enought greens and blues in order to have the viewer interpret the body correctly. The more the abstract quality is in balance with the meaning of the female form.

Colored pencil drawing on Talens Toned paper (21 x 29,7 x 0.1 cm)
Artist: Corné Akkers