Erik’s 100 Day Challenge: Say More With Less

[Bryan Mccabe]

Nice work so far. You are off to a great start.

[erikdennes]

Day 8

I had trouble posting yesterday so I’ll have to post two today.

30 minute figure study conte on newsprint.

[erikdennes]

Day 9
Planes of the head study. On the left I drew a head from imagination in sanguine and drew the planes of the head over it to correct myself.

[erikdennes]

Thanks for the encouragement Bryan!

[erikdennes]

Day 10

Random studies and body parts from reference and imagination. Didn’t have a lot of time to work today.

[erikdennes]

Day 10

I did a crosshatch version of Day 7 on toned paper. Not sure how successful this was.

[erikdennes]

Day 11

Quick loose sketch in ballpoint pen with white conte on toned paper.

[erikdennes]

Day 12

This started out as my warm up sheet, and I just kept drawing on top of things.

[Joshua Jacobo]

You’re on the right track! I would only suggest at this point that you slow down. You can be careful and loose, careful and show movement. You don’t need to move your hand fast to make the drawing feel alive. More care and tidiness.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Joshua Jacobo.

[erikdennes]

Day 13

Thanks for the advice Joshua. Today’s drawing is much more planned, thought out, and purposely executed.  Yesterday, I just wanted to relax and have fun.  I do tend to go too fast and slop it all down, but sometimes I enjoy that more even if the result isn’t as good. That is my challenge though, to say more with less, and as you say, slow down and be more careful.

[erikdennes]

Day 14

Rembrandt study: markers, pens, and white conte on toned paper.  It took a lot longer than I thought it was going to.

[Ian Coltman]

Hi Erik,

I dig the spirit of your challenge! I can’t think of a more important skill to have in any communication or design discipline.

It looks like you are swiftly hitting your stride.

Charles Dana Gibson and Bob Peak are two heroes of mine that may serve as effective reference points for your goal. The former for his virtuosity, the latter for his inventiveness.

Cheers!

[erikdennes]

Day 15

Thanks Ian Coltman for the kind words and encouragement.  I have been a fan a Charles Dana Gibson for a while.  Is there some reference book you like for Bob Peak?  All I could find online was his movie posters.

 

I got a commission for a painting that I have to finish fairly soon, so I guess I’ll be posting progress on that.  Here is my monochromatic underpainting simplified into 4 values.  My question to my fellow NMA students is can it be simplified even further?

[Ian Coltman]

Hey Erik… it seems to me like you are posing a design question. So, what are your motives?

If you had to make a binary decision… Is the focus of this painting the car or the sign?

From a graphic perspective, your contrast map is heavily favoring the sign right now… and you have isolated the car with a cooler hue… why?

[erikdennes]

Ian,

Thanks for your interest.

The photo reference was taken by the client of his prized Buick Regal, so the painting really needs to be about the car with the sign as a secondary read.  I isolated the car in blue because I wanted it to be the same value as the rest of the shapes in that group but stand out by hue so I can start to emphasize it more.  It doesn’t help me that the car is a greyish blue and the coke sign is bright red in the reference.  I’m going to have to really pull down the intensity of the sign and pull up the intensity of the car.

My first step is to get the value structure working.  Then I am going to think about what I want to say with color.  I usually do not paint realistic colors, but choose color relationships that I find pleasing.  Then I’ll think about what I want to say with edges and brush work.  I have to separate everything out like this because I’m to poor of an artist to do it all at the same time!

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