Creating Neo Deco – 08-10-24

Website link: https://corneakkers.com/neo-deco-08-10-24/
Printable: https://corneakkers.com/product/printable-neo-deco-08-10-24/

Dora Maar

This graphite pencil drawing ‘Neo Deco – 08-10-24’ is a celebration of hair. Next to this it’s an homage to photographer Dora Maar. Famous for her surrealist photography she also was Picasso’s lover (who wasn’t?). She even influenced the creation of his masterpiece ‘Guernica’. There is this particular picture that appealed to me for years now. It’s the artistic motif at hand that inspired me: a female head lying back with wavy locks hanging down. Everything nice about the 1930s is present in it. There’s a hefty tonal play, smashing composition and a real art deco feel to it. The hair almost seems to go on forever. These photos can also be a bit freigthening. Simply by their ultimate quality they leave little room for artists like me to add value to them. Therefor, one has to set all ambitions aside and just start to draw. Artistic motifs exhaust quicly!

Focus on the Hairdo

However, stimulated by the succes of my previous drawing of Anna Sten I decided to focus on all these hairs. Let’s see if I could style it even further. It lent itself for that quite nicely. The concept was to form some kind of a grid pattern of vertically and horizontally placed structures. Just like in the two previous drawings. Doing so, all things curved are perfectly counterbalanced. I even placed highlighted segments in a horizontal alignment whereas in the photo they are curved. Halfway through the drawing I took a closer look at the bottom of the photograph. Then I saw that the hairy structures in fact were nothing more than a hairy carpet. That wasn’t my cup of tea. Trying to turn them into cubism I feared the distinction between locks and carpet would not be clear. Hence the extension of the hairdo with some more curls.

Graphite pencil (Faber Castell Pitt Graphite Matt pencil 14B) drawing on Fabriano Ingres paper (21 x 28.2 x 0.1 cm)
Artist: Corné Akkers