Santa Marta

Santa Marta, Rio De Janeiro

I don't usually step out of my comfort zone so this was a challenge for me. In the cubism style done best by artists whom I admire, I tried to feel the place in shapes instead of shadows and lights. It was difficult for sure because I am not used to painting this way or thinking this way. It was an experiment in the best way. I definitely learned a lot doing this and I've learned a lot about how to look at the world when I paint. It's different for sure but there is still some ground to stand on. I'm so happy to have had this challenge, awesome.

Link to competition: https://steemit.com/artstyleart/@aksinya/6th-artstyleart-theme-announcement-cubism-architecture

On to the process :)
I've been spurred on by another artist to "drop the man" as he says. So, I got onto google maps wanting to draw a favela in Brasil and "dropped the man." I was completely surprised by the result and landed on this beauty of a spot in the Santa Marta favela in Rio de Janerio. What an amazing place! I got an angle I liked and then went in with the pencil and a wash.

light pencil and a wash over the top where I think the warm and cool should be.

I knew I had to be mindful of the style that Picasso would've approached this with so I had to dent a lot of the tendencies I normally have to add the occlusion shadows and other light/shadow related ideas. Instead I opted for some "shadow areas" that were gradated in a way that they still had a shape, didn't go too far away from the overall expression, and still sort of made the point.

Feeling out the shapes

All in all I had a lot of fun doing this painting. It was different than my normal stuff and the whole time I was thinking how fun it was that for the first time in a long while I didn't really feel like I had a say. I had to stay in bounds of this idea and for me this was a good thing.

Sometimes as an artist I think we get so much leeway that we don't really have to bow to one style or another and we get complacent. This challenge really made me test my mettle and apply what I know to something different, strange, new and interesting.

All the best everyone, thanks for stopping in.