Erik’s 100 Day Challenge: Say More With Less

[GordanKnezic]

Hello Erik,

You provided me with some valuable critiques on my work, I hope I can be of some assistance as well.

Everything seems ok except the car looks odd. It looks too distorted, likely because it is located outside of cone of vision.

The ellipse’s main axis is perpendicular to the front and rear wheel’s axis that ends in LVP. On the drawing ellipse major axis seem to be directed to VVP.

Keep up good work!

[erikdennes]

Thanks to Gordan, Christopher and Elizabeth for the comments and kind words.  The photo is messed up, the verticals should all be vertical.  The car looks funky because it is waaaay out of the cone of vision.  I think Gary had to set it up that way because of the camera situation.  It was throwing him off too.  The wheels he said you have to cheat because of the extreme distortion.  I need to do a lot more of this kind of drawing because it really targets my weak spots, much of which is drawing things from imagination, or using a reference, but drawing it from a different angle.

[erikdennes]

Day 44
Things went much smoother today. It was a lot more fun putting in the details once setting up all of the proportions was out of the way.

[erikdennes]

Day 45

Started painting the mural I designed from day 22.  The colors look way better in person. It is mostly a purple yellow complimentary color scheme, but you can’t tell that from the photo.

[erikdennes]

Day 46

Started working on the center of interest for the mural. This camera really does a bad job with color. I used color recession and painted the sides ultramarine blue, then dioxazine purple, and quinacradone magenta for the middle tones using yellow ochre as a compliment.

[Jan]

Your 100 Day Challenge has been so instructive for me. Like someone else posted, it’s frustrating to not feel qualified to offer any kind of useful critique, so I’ll just say WOW. The mural is incredible, and I’m in awe of your Day 44 perspective study. I’m not sure if you saw my reply to your comments regarding my Planes of the Head drawing, but the tips were extremely valuable. I’m getting ready to revise that drawing right now. Thanks again for the help and also for the inspiration you’ve provided posting your progress!

[erikdennes]

Day 47

Thanks Jan for your comments! I’m glad my draw over was helpful, and it is nice to know that people are getting something out of my posts.

Today I worked on staircases. After screwing up a bunch of them, I did this one.

[erikdennes]

Jan,

By the way, the perspective study on day 44 is right out of Gary Meyers lesson on NMA. So if you like it you should take a look at the lesson and give it a try.  Do yourself a favor and do some of the easier perspective drawings first before you tackle this one.  There are a lot of concepts he puts into practice in this one that you need to be familiar with.

[Debbie H]

Hi Erik. Perspective is fun isn’t it. Your staircase looks great. I’m interested to know with your mural, how do you get everything correct at a large scale? I’ve not worked at this scale before but I’ve always wondered how people do it. Here in Australia, some artists have taken to painting massive murals on grain silos, water towers etc. and some of them are just amazing. Here’s a link: https://www.australiansiloarttrail.com/gallery

[erikdennes]

Day 48

Deborah,

To get the mural to scale I use a grid. Because it is a cement block wall, there is already a grid built into the wall. All I have to do is count how many blocks long and how many blocks tall. Each block is twice as long as it is high. I set up the grid on my drawing and then all I have to do is transfer it to the wall block by block. Sometimes I have to do that by sight, but where possible, I can save time by using a projector and line up the grid on my drawing with the blocks on the wall. Even if I am projecting, I don’t trace from it. I think about the volumes and try and depict the volumes the best I can. I use vine charcoal because you can just wipe out mistakes. For this mural I drew over the charcoal drawing in black paint, then primed the wall over the drawing making sure I could still see enough of the drawing through the primer.

I watched a little of the new beginning portrait in oils series and was inspired to paint in oils. I got out an old block-in from a live painting session I attended before COVID. After correcting all of the drawing errors I had, I used the NMA 3D planes of the head model to help me with defining the planes better. The rest is just imagination. I might work on this some more, or maybe not.

[Joshua Jacobo]

Great portrait. Make sure that the reflected light isn’t as bright as anything on the light side. Also think about how the hair would trap light and create occlusion between it and the skin. 👍🏼

[Jan]

Thanks for the recommendation, Erik! I was looking at Erik Olson’s series, but I’ll definitely check out Gary Meyer too. The portrait is beautiful! I love the eyes.

[erikdennes]

Day 49

Thanks for the advice Joshua, and thanks for the nice comment Jan.  I worked on the portrait a little more and tried to use Joshua’s tips. Didn’t have a whole lot of time to work today.

[Joshua Jacobo]

Really great work!

[GordanKnezic]

Great work Erik! You can see through her eyes!

[Author]

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