I’ve recently discovered Cape Town realist MJ Lourens whose work is very dreamy and haunting in a dusky, post-industrial Mulholland sort of way
but also THIS FENCE HOLY SHIT
this motherfucker has painted what I cannot
The hardest thing in all of realism
The chain link fence
Why are chain link fences so hard? I mean, I could never draw one to save my life even in stick figures, but that’s because I’ve never put in the dedication for it. I’m trying to not ask in a dismissive way, I’m genuinely curious
Well for one thing chain link is thick steel wire, which is cylindrical. So right off the bat it’s difficult because it’s machined. Machined things are things like bottles, cans, metal tools, instruments, gun parts, cars, anything made in a factory. They’re mathematically perfect. And that’s hard to draw because it’s so neat and straight.
Imagine trying to paint a straight line. Now imagine painting a thousand of them, exactly the same.
Now imagine painting a thousand of them to look three-dimensional.
But chain-link fence is also a grid. A perfect grid. Evenly spaced.
A perfect grid of three-dimensional cylindrical wire of all the same thickness.
And it’s been twisted together at perfect intervals:
And it’s METALLIC. And it’s in daylight. With shadows falling on each wire and twist a little differently.
Chain-link fence is a nightmare.
Oh jesus i didn’t even think about that.
Thank you for responding! That makes a lot more sense than anything I was coming up with
thisacelovesheadcanons 