Portraiture in Canes

Julie Eakes is unique among polymer artists. She works with canes but with an end result far beyond what most of us even dream to attempt. She works at developing realistic images in mosaic like canes.

This piece below is even unusual for Julie. This is an image, completely created with patterned canes, all in black and white and using the eye’s natural tendency to mix tones and merge tiny details into larger imagery; very much the same as is done in pointillism. Our distance from details causes this to happen. You may have noticed this when looking at thumbnails of a piece online only to click on the image and find it is hardly like what you imagined it would be. And that is something to consider. When working on a piece, it might serve you well to step back and observe your work at the distance that it will most often be viewed to get a clear idea of the impression it gives.

The portrait here is of the artist Chuck Close, who is a very apropos subject being he creates portraiture in the very same mosaic like manner. Chuck, however, paints on a grid format, sometimes monochromatic as well as in color, each block of the grid usually being a series of rings, not unlike extruded canes. It’s no wonder Julie was inspired to create his portrait.

Julie created Chuck’s image using a photo that had been printed on the front of New York’s Village Voice, the image actually being a 3D model of Chuck Close that her brother made of the artist. You can see the close up of the canes as well as a video documenting Julie’s creation of the piece on her blog here.