Welcome to the "Odd Nerdrum Technique Research Pages" by Derek Van Derven

"You would think if you just copy what you see, it would look real. But it does not, you have to follow the Greeks. But there are some things on the model you can't make up."

- Odd Nerdrum at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

To draw like God.... you must follow the mind of God, expressed as NATURE.

The first step in understanding the human body and being able to draw it from the mind alone like Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci could, is to draw from a skull, or a skull model until you memorize it. Then learn the planes and forms and proportions of the features.
Click on the below image to enlarge to see what I am talking about, and how Nerdrum draws from knowledge.

 

The below painting is not done, i scraped down with the razor blade when the layers were dry and glazed the blackish glaze over the whole thing and wiped out the lights, then scraped out the highlights like I usually do. I am just using a flat brush in definite bold strokes, and correct them with the knife. Use burnt umber and blue to get a gray to mute colors down otherwise your colors will look like comic book Disney World colors. Notice how I start with the skull, then the head, squinting to see color as tone. 80% of this head was made up so far. That is the same percentage that Nerdrum does it by knowledge, and 20% comes from the model. Click on an image to enlarge.

This is the most important thing I can say to you now about Odd Nerdrum's technique. And that is DRAWING. Odd Nerdrum, like the Old Masters before him, is a MASTER of human anatomy. It is not evident in his figures, but you can see it clearly in his heads. When I mean mastering anatomy, I mean drawing a skull model, (made from a real skull), and drawing that skull until you memorize its shape and proportions in any position. Then you learn the planes of the head from Greek statues, and paint your heads as if they were Greek statue heads, with those same simplified planes. Nerdrum keeps the eyes in shadow most of the time for ease of painting and realism.

For the body, you should get an articulated skeleton, and draw it in any position, memorizing the proportions, angles and shapes of the bones. Then learn the muscle connection anatomy above that, and finally the fatty deposits over that, especially on women. Twist the skeleton into many poses and memorize the forms. Then draw the skeletons out of your head, and draw the muscles over them, where they "insert" into the bone. Then model with tone from your knowledge of the body, just like you would on an egg.

ODD NERDRUM CAN DRAW ANY FIGURE OUT OF HIS IMAGINATION JUST LIKE THE OLD MASTERS AND LIKE MICHELANGELO COULD. IF YOU CANNOT DRAW THE FIGURE FROM YOUR MIND, STYLIZED LIKE A GREEK STATUE, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DRAW IT FROM THE MODEL. Your drawing will be at the mercy of the model's constant movements, distortions in perspective, tiny details if the model is far, and any lighting that looks ugly, and most importantly, will NOT be stylized like the GREEKS. The reason realistic painters today do not look like "master" paintings, is they copy what they see, they do not draw upon what they know.. You will be basically TOTALLY DEPENDENT on what you see. Nerdrum is not like this. Nerdrum can make up from his mind 90% from his KNOWLEDGE, of perspective, local color, greek planes, anatomy, and soft gradated light on egg forms. Nerdrum rounds his forms always like Edvard Munch did, and is very influenced by him. Nerdrum had pronounced anatomy in youth, like Rembrandt, and simplified and subdued it in old age, like Rembrandt.

If you want to draw as well as Odd Nerdrum, you must follow this process exactly. Buy a skull, draw from it and memorize it. Then start drawing the skull from your knowledge and fit the features of the head over that skull from your knowledge. The features should be from the Greek statue heads you see. Simplified. Example. No eyelashes really, or just a suggestion of them at the sides. In essence, you are becoming like a human 3d modeling program in constructing a head and body out of your mind. I quote Leonardo Da Vinci,

"A painter paints with his brains, not with his hands". And when Da Vinci said this, he was talking primarily knowledge of nature, and anatomy. Da Vinci knew anatomy and dissected bodies like a master.