Erik Van Elven, 1969

Erik Van Elven grew up in a very creative family in the North of the Netherlands.

His parents were always very supportive about drawing and painting and both his older brother and younger sister also have a job as a creative.

Although he has no formal art education, he learned about creating images all his life.

When he was a teenager Photography was a big hobby.

In his twenties he picked up 3D-modeling and landed a job at a 3D-company creating characters for animated Children series.

Working on a computer was nice but around 2005 he longed for a more physical way of working and he picked up painting.

One of his big influences was Richard Schmid, and his book "All I know about painting".

Technique

At first, he started painting using acrylic and water mixable oil paints.

Nowadays, he mainly uses oil paint on dibond (aluminum) panel or linen.

"Oil paint for me is the King of all mediums. The brilliant colors, the transparency/opacity of different paints and the longer working time compared to acrylics are the perfect fit for me".

Erik likes to paint realistically with loose brushwork.

For a long time, he used an underpainting of raw umber and added one or two color layers on top of that.

The last year his technique has changed in the sense that the underpainting is done in color right away after which a glaze layer is added to make subtle corrections and to reinforce the contrast.

This results in much brighter colors compared to the umber underpainting but requires more focus in the first layer because all the color/value decisions have to be made right away.

Erik Van Elven: "Mi piacciono molto i dipinti che sembrano congelare un momento nel tempo, con persone che si trovano in un mondo tutto loro".

Erik Van Elven è cresciuto in una famiglia molto creativa nel nord dei Paesi Bassi.

I suoi genitori sono sempre stati molto favorevoli al disegno ed alla pittura ed anche suo fratello maggiore e sua sorella minore hanno un lavoro come creativo.

Sebbene non abbia un'educazione artistica formale, ha imparato a creare immagini per tutta la vita.

Quando era adolescente la fotografia era un grande hobby.

Poco più che ventenne ha iniziato a dedicarsi alla modellazione 3D e ha trovato lavoro presso un'azienda 3D che creava personaggi per serie animate per bambini.

Lavorare al computer era bello, ma intorno al 2005 desiderava un modo di lavorare da vivo e ha iniziato a dipingere.

Una delle sue grandi influenze è stato Richard Schmid ed il suo libro "Tutto quello che so sulla pittura".