Utah (2014)

Website link: https://corneakkers.com/utah-2014/
Print: https://corneakkers.com/print-utah-2014/
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Utah

This pastel drawing ‘Utah (2014)’ depicts a particular canyon in Utah, not Bryce Canyon by the way. Sarah Rose, a pastellist and dear colleague from the U.S. and living in Utah, once took this picture on horseback. She saw this remarkeable mushroom-like rock and asked herself whether anyone could do a painting or drawing of this. Intrigued as I was, I couldn’t resist exploring further, even though I haven’t ever been there.

Hatched Strokes

In order to suggest distance I saw my hatched strokes technique fit for the job. An example of such work is Hatertse Vennen 07 (2013) (sold). By their appearance, objects showing slightly jagged edges, look a little blurry and thus tend to stand farther away. Hatching is by far the technique to show color shifts. This is done by placing colorful lines (for example cooler and warmer) next to eachother. Through this process I am able to keep my patches and lines clean. The reason is that pastel can look very murky when blended too much. After all, basically it is dust and lacks the brilliancy of oils. In my eyes, blending is a mistake even though blenders no not concur.

Abstract Quality

The photo Sarah presented me was either a crop or showed rocks only. It made it appear to be abstract more or less because the connotation is lost. Nowhere is a tree or a bit of sky to be found. Besides that, the rock that stands only on a small base looks pretty surreal to me. Throughout the years people often tell me they still cannot detect the true nature of this depiction. They also see a rocky person sitting in a chair. That always makes me smile.

Pastel drawing on Canson Mi-Teintes Touch paper (47 x 63 x 0.1 cm)
Artist: Corné Akkers