Creating St-Bavo in Haarlem – 03-10-23

Website link: https://corneakkers.com/st-bavo-in-haarlem-03-10-23/
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A Break

This graphite pencil drawing ‘St.-Bavo in Haarlem – 03-10-23’ is a break from the continuous stream of cubist female forms. So it goes, on a whim I decided to postpone them for a while and return to sketching. Just for the fun of it, creating a drawing in one day. Well, not exactly one day. I started yesterday before art class started when I still had time before my students arrived. Only a couple of compositary lines to set things up. Today I did 95% in one go. This is the result.

Hatching Again

It’s done in my typical hatched strokes style I like to call my own. Throughout the years I kept on executing pencil and pastel drawings in this fashion. Surely it’s to practise my hands and I guess just for the love for the line. What else than simple diagonal lines to begin with. See if I can deliver them parallel across the paper. Setting out big proportion came next. Well, nothing special to mention. It’s my first after Marlot – 27-04-23 anyway. Back then I had some ambitions to go out and sketch that very Spring. Instead I did a lot of work on my website but lucky for me now Autumn has arrived. Lots of beautiful colours outdoors and this drawing might be a prelude.

Haarlem

The scenery was not done live though. It is just a reference photo I took when I was in Haarlem. That might be some time ago, visiting Teylers Museum. The St. Bavo Church is just around the corner. I remember I was attracked by the sunlight coming from the top left corner. In this particular case the sun beam is a present created by the camera. Such a thing never presents itself during a live drawing session. Then you only are hindered by the sun and tempt to squint your eyes. Maybe the best of both worlds, wouldn’t you say? I think David Hockney would agree to that, taking his remarks on photography and art into account.

Graphite pencil drawing (Sakura 0.5 mm, 4B) on Winsor & Newton Bristol board paper (21 x 14.8 x 0.1 cm – A5 format)
Artist: Corné Akkers