Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Hexagon Block Portraits (6)



After I'd pretty much exhausted the possibilities of my first group of blocks, I decided to make a new set with a focus on depth and volume and less flashy color and brushwork. I limited the colors to get more cohesion in the portraits, and applied the paint in a "relief" method: colors applied in order of darkness - darkest first, lightest last. This avoids implications of directional light sources, which are always dramatic and evocative, but are hard to keep consistent so can be distracting.
I also wanted to see if I could work without relying on the representational blocks, which were such an important part of the first few portraits but were never really part of the original idea behind the project and again, drew so much attention as to be a bit of a distraction.

5 comments:

Thomas Herpich said...

Shit- I don't think I've seen this one before. Easily my new favorite. This approach feels very focused and pure.

ptoing said...

Nice stuff. I really enjoy these. Makes me wanna try something similar. This one kinda reminds me of Elvis for some reason.

George Cwirko-Godycki said...

this is the prettiest of all the hex portraits i think, the colors realy work

Peter Herpich said...

Thanks George. I was talking to my brother lately about how, objectively, I know this one is the best, but had to twist my own arm to make it because of how reliant I usually am on expressionistic distortion and coloration for emotional impact. It's hard to kick away the crutch even when, like I said, I knew that the somber dignity and convincing spatiality of this piece would have more of an impact.

Space Mountain Man said...

I saw you working on this with my ultra high powered telescope - good work!