It’s the first week of June, and summer’s in around the corner with the warm sun shining, hot weather, and a touch of the cool summer breeze! Today’s all-new fun topic on The Autistic Animator’s Desk is back with three new ballet drawings for the Animated Variations. It’s the ninth project of the series, and with that, we’ll be taking a look of the drawings of the variation of the first principal ballerina in ‘Emeralds’ from Jewels.
Going back from last year to the past months for this year, you’ve already saw female principal ballerina variations for ‘Rubies’ from August, and then ‘Diamonds’ back in January, in celebrating George Balanchine’s 120th birthday. However, the previous Animated Variations artwork I’ve post from last time before this was on Odette (White Swan) variation from Swan Lake, also back in January. If you haven’t seen either the ‘Diamonds’ ballerina variation nor Odette variation drawings on this blog, I’ve left two links at the end of this topic.
For any new readers or subscribers out there, if you don’t know what Animated Variations is, it’s a fun art drawing series I would do three drawings of any iconic variation pieces from any famous ballet pieces, whether it’s from the Romantic ballet, Classical ballet, or Modern ballet.
With ‘Rubies’ and ‘Diamonds’ variation drawings already done, this will be very exciting to share three main drawings of ‘Emeralds’ (female) variation.
‘Emeralds’ is the first act in the ballet, Jewels, and it’s choreographed by George Balanchine for New York City Ballet. This section was made for lead dancers Violette Verdy, Mimi Paul, Conrad Ludlow, and Francisco Moncion as the four lead principal dancers, along with three soloists, and the corps de ballet. The music was by Gabriel Faure, taken from the extracts of Pelleas et Melisande and Shylock. Balanchine choreographed ‘Emeralds’ to represent the beautiful and romantic style, influencing the French look and the Romantic ballet-era. Each principal ballerina performs her own variation, and with this one here, we’ll focus on the first variation of the first ‘Emeralds’ principal ballerina.
The drawings were drawn on Autodesk SketchBook in digital drawing medium at 1430 x 1080. The previous ‘Emeralds’ artwork drawings I did back in 2021 were a couple of the pas de deux drawings in digital drawing, along with the ‘Diamonds’ and ‘Rubies’ pas de deux drawings done in the very same year.
I started working on the first variation of ‘Emeralds’ principal ballerina project in early-May. Before doing the drawings in rough pencil sketches, the first thing to do was by watching the ‘Emeralds’ first variation performance clip on YouTube, in order to pick and choose three iconic variation movements. The clip I watched was on Beatriz Stix-Brunell’s performance as the first ‘Emeralds’ lead ballerina in Royal Ballet’s production of Jewels in London, England.
Once I was done watching the clip, I would go back to the beginning to pick and choose the first pose to sketch the first drawing and then do the exact same process for two more drawings. During the rough drawing process, besides using the YouTube clip for reference, I also used couple of my drawing designs of ‘Emeralds’, such as the first drawing design of the ‘Emeralds’ lead ballerina and two of the ‘Emeralds’ pas de deux artwork drawings, so I can stay true to my animation design and look, especially staying true to Balanchine’s look and the costume style by Barbara Karinska, who designed the costumes for the ballet.
Before beginning sketching the first drawing, I wanted to add a green background first, using the spray paint tool to create the effect.
The drawings were started off with a simple light sketch, and whenever it’s finished and if I’m happy with the pose, I can detail it in pencil.
💚 Emeralds 1st Variation Rough Drawings 💚
After the rough drawings were completed, one by one, I would take one drawing, and start doing the clean-up drawing process, and finally, do the coloring process, until it’s fully completed. The project of the ‘Emeralds’ (female) first variation artwork was finished on May 6th, 2024.
Let’s go ahead and take a look at the main drawings of this variation down below into the next section!
💚 Emeralds 1st Variation Drawing 1 💚
The first artwork piece of the ‘Emeralds’ (female) first variation, with the first principal ballerina dancing in a beautiful arabesque movement.
This was completed on May 3rd, 2024.
💚 Emeralds 1st Variation Drawing 2 💚
The second drawing of the ‘Emeralds’ first variation, in which, to me, this is one of the iconic dance movements in this section from Jewels. In the drawing, the principal Emerald ballerina lifts one left up en pointe, and the arms are floating up in the air.
This was finished on May 6th, 2024.
💚 Emeralds 1st Variation Drawing 3 💚
And finally, the third drawing of the ‘Emeralds’ first variation, and this illustrates one of the principal ballerina’s final dance movements before she can end her variation. Here you just only have her en pointe, and her arms are opened into a horizontal movement.
This was finished on May 6th, 2024.
That is the ‘Emeralds’ (female) first variation artwork drawings from Balanchine’s Jewels, and so, because there are two lead principal ballerinas dancing in ‘Emeralds’, I’ll have to save the second variation for next time. I just have to find a clip of the second variation on YouTube, in order for me to work on doing the drawings to go with the first variation project.
It was a fun project to work on. I really find doing drawings of any ballet made by George Balanchine, especially made for New York City Ballet, and turn it into my own animation style is so much fun, and I think doing an animated adaptation of Jewels would be an absolute fun and fantastic.
So, I hope you all have enjoyed today’s post! ☺ Next weekend, I’ll be sharing an all-new Disney fan art in celebrating the 30th anniversary of the release of The Lion King (1994), coming on June 15th.
Link:
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