Chapter 4 | LET’S DANCE!
In the painting ‘Les Plongeurs’ by the French artist Fernand Léger (pronounced leezjee), two figures are happily splashing and splashing in water. In a few places, Léger has drawn large droplets. Léger painted his human figures in a style that is entirely his own: they appear childishly simple with only black contours (outlines) and their arms and/or legs as separate parts.
Exercise 1: Try drawing some new figures in Léger’s style, composed of separate parts in different directions. Blacken the outlines thoroughly or give them a distinct color.
Look at Léger’s painting again. Large rectangular blocks of color are painted across the round figures. He got the idea for these colored blocks while watching people dancing at a party, surrounded by brightly colored beams of light.
Exercise 2: For drawing, use thick, white drawing paper of approximately A4 size; for painting, use at least A3 thick drawing or painting paper, cardboard, or canvas.
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 from previous chapters, but you can of course use other figures of your own choice, for example like the ones in the painting of Fernand Léger.
Step 2: With a thick marker or (if you want to paint) with a brush, make only the outlines black. Leave out details, keep it simple.
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.
Alternative method: first draw or paint a few large, even areas of color spread across your paper, and then draw or paint the dancers over them.
Here’s another work by Fernand Léger featuring a lot of human figures in his signature style, but this time without the contrasting color blocks. Thanks to the photo in a museum room with two people, you can see the enormous size of the mural.
If you like you can print my last example and turn this black and white drawing into a flashy and colorful disco party.
