I found this great early picture of a young Bettie Page posing before her pin-up days of fame. Like all previous reference pictures this one shows great lighting. This time she is even lit from two sides. It creates lovely core shadows on the body with lighter planes to the left and side of each body part. As you may know by now from childhood I am all about tonal values. The reason why I did so many graphite drawings lies in my love of the medium. Besides that, I consider color as an option on top of composition and values. These kind of drawings merely are a study after the latter. I reckon I will execute the best of them in later pastels, colored pencil drawings and oils to come.
I endeavored to combine my personal roundism style with some surrealism this time. Actually I made some references to symbolism, surralism and mathematics altogether. This intially strange combination creates some sort of distorted, alieniating yet attractive view on the body. However, a correct use of values prevents the spectator from not recognizing the overall look. As a result she remains the pleasant appearance of Bettie to gaze upon. Personally I think such adds to flavor of everything she stood for: sexual liberation and an appetite for the naughty.
In my graphite pencil drawing ‘Roundism – 27-04-18’ I mentioned the golden ratio. Surely that has been prominently demonstrated of late. The drawing at hand is no exception. Thre are two vortices in her knee and breast. In the negative space around her body I made some curves echoing her curves like a continuous wave. These curves or rather oscillating lines are proof that everything in the universe vibrates.
Graphite pencil drawing (Pentel 0.5 mm, 3B) on Strathmore Bristol paper (21 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm) - A4 format)
Artist: Corné Akkers
