Thursday, April 12, 2012

The Story Behind 40 works that changed my career 10

Number 10-AFRO XXI





This is one from my AFRO SERIES. I remember I was at Church on a Sunday afternoon and I went to the lobby where we normally relax between the morning service and evening service, and these lovely girls were helping themselves look good. I just took a number a shots while the plaiting took place, it was only later while looking through my archive of pictures did I realize this would be great for my current Afro Series. I cropped the original picture to suit the size, abstract shape and composition I was looking for. I really enjoyed working on this piece because it all evolved organically and I was able to infuse my word-mark making calligraphic strokes into this one too. So if you look closely you'll see words in the background effects!



AFRO XXI, Carbon pencil/charcoal dust/graphite, 8" x 10", 2008

I started by giving the watercolour paper a good sanding effect then I sketched very lightly first to make sure I got the right shapes and proportion of the figures. I used my charcoal dust mixed with water to treat the drawing as if I was working on a watercolour, I work in tonal graduation from light to dark. After this was done, I used a blending stick to work the tones into each other. Then finally I used my graphite pencils and mechanical pencils to get the detail.

This work was sold to my great friend Alice, who saw it on my blog immediately I posted it!

SPECIAL QUOTE
"An artist has to earn the right to shade a drawing by first drawing the lines accurately"-Jon deMartin

4 comments:

Greybrush, [Steve Dominey] said...

That Jon deMartin quote has got me thinking this morning.

adebanji said...

Sure Grey Brush! It got me thinking too! I was reading an article in the Plein air Magazine from a student of his, and I thought it would change a lot of things I do from now on!

Vinayak Deshmukh said...

The quote is brilliant and so is the drawing. Alice must be feeling really lucky!
Best wishes

adebanji said...

Thanks Vinayak!