This is a drawing that i created from a picture that i found online, it may not be an extreme muscular women but i felt a connection with the image as soon as i saw it. I like in particular the lines that have formed, from the transformation from photograph to pencil on paper. I can see from my drawing the possibilities that i could create if i were to paint this image. I would still keep to the black and white style as i feel that is where my strength lies. Maybe this image could be one in a series of images. The lines and shades flow so nicely in this image, and i could expand on the motion of these lines allowing them to be freer. Which would give the impression of the wind taking on the form/subject.
By looking at different artists and how they have painted the female nude it accrued to me that you dont see pointillism in female nudes. This idea of painting in pointillism came from looking at a piece by French Post-Impressionist painter Georges Pierre Seurat and his painting :- A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884, 1884/86, Oil on canvas, (207.5 x 308.1 cm).
The incredible detail made by tiny dots inspired me to create a small piece myself with the female nude. Just to see the effect it would bring to the nude. I dont feel at this point that i will continue with pointillism, but maybe in the future i could develop this idea further using the female nude as a subject still.
I enjoy drawing as much as i do painting, so allowing time for myself to create these sketches give me so many idea’s that i couldn’t possibly create everything. Again this image was sourced online and i made changes to the stomach using a different image, to keep the muscular female theme.
The reason i chose this image is because of the powerful gaze. Which i find intriguing. The Gaze is something that is generally occupied with the female nude. History has painted the female nude visually implying the ‘gaze’, a psychological theory, between the optical and tactical senses. (Sassatelli, 2011, P.123-143) The Gaze intended to titillate the male senses. According to psychologists Laura Mulvey, the “male gaze” positions the male as a spectator with the female on display, objectifying the women as an object, inviting the male to take pleasure through the gaze to project his own fantasy of either Voyeuristic or fetishist desire, powering the male’s ego. (Sassatelli, 2011, P.123-143) The male gaze used by artists, is an important process that defines the meaning behind a painting.
I found a few images online whilst looking for books on images of the body from Amazon and this particular image attracted my attention and i decided that i would like to sketch it out. Again with all my drawings and paintings i avoid being completely accurate. I( i do not use graphs or squares etc.) I do want my image to resemble what i am looking at, but i prefer to let my mistakes and the motions flow through my work, so that the work then becomes my own and is not a replica of the images i find. They are my interpretations and if i decide to paint them, i will do so from my drawings so that the image again can change through the process. This helps to distance the final image away from the original. ( With my sketch i loved the way that the back of the female is curved like a wave, keeping the idea of women having curves.)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bodies-Boris-Vallejo-His-Photographic/dp/1560251581
Concentrating purely on the stomach and chest of the female body builder, the muscles which define the body doesn’t define the sex of the person. You tend to find that women who do alot of extreme body building loose there breasts as they turn the fatty tissue into muscles/pectorals . (This is mainly due to drug intake on the woman’s behalf to enhance the muscles like a man) In magazines the female bodybuilders are depicted with large breasts this is because the majority have had breast surgery to retain the female parts to define themselves still as women. (It is worth noting that if women do exercise or do body building that unless pushed to its extreme state that they will still retain the female breasts.) But for my project i have found it interesting to look into females that have pushed there bodies to the extreme, losing society definition of the female identity of there breasts. Making them visually mimic a male body (chest, abs, arms, legs, shoulders).
