Creating Sans Titre – 29-09-24 (Marlene Dietrich)

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The Return to Ingres Paper

This graphite pencil drawing ‘Sans Titre – 29-09-24’ honors female celebrity moviestar Marlene Dietrich. Laid down in soft and hard pencil strokes. At least that was my intention. After my last one of Louise Brooks I wanted to work in black and white again. However, not using Bristol paper like the one before called ‘Neo Deco – 15-09-24’. Instead, I was attracted to ribbed structure of Ingres paper once again, such as in Sans Titre – 27-07-23. Somehow I must have realized this year I didn’t even use it. Many people don’t like this kind of paper because of the structure. Not me. The very disability of having vertical lines shimmer through adds to the flavor. It gives structure and rhythym to the drawing. These rigid lines offer you the rocksteady beat to which you can variate in roundish lines. After all, isn’t this what art is all about: contrast?

Hairdo Done Abstractly

There was this great reference picture I found from the 1930s. You know, my favorite decade. Maybe one of the most iconic photographs made of Marlene Dietrich. At least to me that is. You could say, quite a challenge to accept. What to add to a perfect picture already? The resemblance has to be perfect but next to this a lot of value added. Nevertheless, that was exactly what I was after. Luckily I spotted the pentagrammic facial features to exploit immediately. The hairdo I could execute in the way I handled Veronica Lake’s. Her hair was perfectly shaped for that. The basic idea was to abstract large portions in vertically and horizontally placed forms. They are subsegmented in smaller compartments by harsh pencil lines. As I drew these I quickly realized it would become something different compared to Ms Lake’s. That’s the way it goes.

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