Creating Julia – 02-08-19

Website link: https://corneakkers.com/julia-02-08-19/
Printable: https://corneakkers.com/product/printable-julia-02-08-19/

Flexible Model

Last year I hired dancer Julia Gómez Avilés as a model. Next to being a wonderful person for an artist she is ideal because of her flexibility. She can pose in many ways and has lots of stamina. This drawing is not from a live drawing session, such as my colored pencil drawing ‘Julia – 11-09-18’. Instead it is based on a picture I saw in her Instagram account. When saw it I immediately felt an urge to use it as a motif for a drawing. In case you don’t know her yet, please visit her profile.

Extreme Pose

Surely I wanted to do this one because of the extreme pose. The challenge to render her complex body position in a credible way while still adding value to the theme. These sorts of drawings always offer a challenge. It is difficult to make something out of thin structures like the limbs in this specific case. The negative space around can become dominant all too easily. I think I solved this problem by throwing in some golden ratio-like curves. Not many but I think they are enough to counterbalance the quantity of blackness around her.

The Cross

Next to being an extreme pose, the pose may also invoke some kind of higher feeling. The cross figure always has been a powerful symbol, not only for Christians but for many before them as well. Evidentially it is as old as human kind itself. That is why I honored this symbol by adding a golden ratio vortex. It goes with a tiny embryo as a the symbol for eternal or should I say, recurrent life. The result is that the drawing shows elements of roundism, realism and surrealism altogether.

Graphite pencil drawing (Sakura 0.5 mm, 3B) on Canson Bristol paper (21 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm) - A4 format)
Artist: Corné Akkers