Chapter 4 | LET’S DANCE!

Let’s dance! is based on the painting ‘Les Plongeurs’ by the French artist Fernand Léger. It is a painting about two people splashing around in the water. Legér only painted the black contours (outlines) of the figures – often with their arms and legs as separate shapes – and large rectangular areas of color between and around them. He got the idea for those colored beams of light while seeing people dancing in a dance hall, surrounded by cheerful colored lights.

Exercise: this exercise consists of the following steps: (for drawing I recommend nice thick and white drawing or painting paper A4 size, for painting at least A3)

Step 1: Draw a number of dancing human figures, first lightly with a pencil. Draw the figures separately from the bottom edge of the paper. In my example I used model figures, but you can of course use other figures, for example like the ones in the painting of Fernand Léger.

Step 2: With a thick felt-tip pen or (if you want to paint) with a brush, make only the outlines black (or another strong color).

Step 3: Draw (colored pencils) or paint a number of large, evenly colored areas between and over the figures. These are the colored beams of light during a dance party. Leave out the outlines of the dancers and/or draw outlines that have become too vague again afterwards with a felt-tip pen or (if you have painted) with a brush.

If you like you can print my last example and turn this black and white drawing into a flashy and colorful disco party.