Erik’s 100 Day Challenge: Say More With Less

[erikdennes]

Day 59

Thanks Deborah for the good eyes. I corrected that head, got rid of the extra thumb, and made the arm a little thicker. I worked on refining edges through the whole mural today, and did a little more work on the blast.  Almost done!

[Debbie H]

No worries! Glad to help 🙂

[erikdennes]

Day 60

Zorn palette study from the beginning portrait painting course. I tried to make the form turn as much as possible using color temperature and intensity.

[Christopher]

Hi Erik,

It’s really enjoyable to see your mural develope. I also like your recent portraits. I’m  not sure if it is but your newest one looks like mostly being warm to me because of the brownish shadows. In my opinion it gives the portrait a somewhat sculptural feeling like those red/brown sculptures which I really like. (sorry if I’m confusing, I’m not familiar with the terms of sculpting)

Anyway nice work and I’m curious to see your next portraits 👍👋

[erikdennes]

Day 61

Thanks Christopher!  Yes, it is supposed to be overall warm key with cool light.

I had to go out of town today, so not much time for art. I managed to pull off a quick block in this morning.

[erikdennes]

Day 62

Not much time again today. My Nephew is in town and we hung out.  I did manage to do another quick block in this morning.

[Debbie H]

You get an awful lot done in not much time! I hope you had a good time with your nephew.

[Joshua Jacobo]

Erik, please see this video I made for you.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by Joshua Jacobo.

[erikdennes]

Day 63

An even quicker block in today.  Last day with my Nephew.  We did have a nice time, thanks Deborah!

[erikdennes]

Day 64

Thanks for the critique Joshua! What a great surprise, and so very helpful.  I really can’t say enough good things about the job everyone at NMA has done to create a truly spectacular learning experience.  I went to an university art school for a year as a post-baccalaureate and they basically just took my money and handed me a diploma.  You just gave me more feedback than all of my professors in a year of school.

I made the corrections you suggested (hopefully), worked a little more on the piece from yesterday, and did another one to fill up the page.

[Joshua Jacobo]

You’re very welcome. You have a great attitude and your dedication is obvious. I’m sure you’ll continue to improve and grow as an artist.

[erikdennes]

Day 65

I got some arches oil paper and thought I would try it out. It needs to be primed because it was way too absorbent, and the paint I used was left over from yesterday and was getting sticky, so I ended up struggling with this a lot. The man is Gendun Rinpoche, a highly advanced Tibetan Buddhist practitioner.

[Christopher]

Hi Erik,

I really like day 64 aswell as day 65. I imagine that the Buddhist was challenging since it looks like ambient lighting? which I imagine to be tough.

Then you did the block ins  (day 64) what was your focus after establishing the proportions? I’m interested in your process and I see a clear light/shadow separation but since I got no experience in colors it’s hard to see for me what your intentions were afterwards.

Especially the top left one looks already pretty solid to me even without drawn/painted eyes.

Anyway keep going your recent portraits look all really good 👋

[erikdennes]

Day 66

Thanks Christopher. I’m just following the process outlined in Todorovich’s course (but not really very well): construction, separation of values into light and dark paying attention to hue and intensity relationships, establish intermediate tones between light and shadow, add highlights.  What I am trying to develop is a better sense of tonal variation in the flesh tones.  I here portrait painters say a lot, “it is greener in here, or bluer there, or purplish here”, but I can’t really see any of that and it seems rather cryptic to me.  I wish they would break it down in terms of local color, or light effect, and then perhaps I could understand it better and know what to look for.

Another block in for today. I think I need to work one size larger. By the time you get down to the features you are in a 4 cm zone for everything, so even being a mm off can make a big difference.

[Petru]

The last one really looks nice, Erik. Regarding the learning process, what works for me is a kind of circular practice and a lot of “feeding the unconscious”; if I don’t understand something from the first try, I know it will eventually reveal itself, sooner or later but mostly through experimenting, observation and revisiting the fundamentals or breaking it down to even simpler exercises for myself. Keep it up!

[Author]

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