100 Stroke challenge

I set a challenge for myself today, paint a portrait in 100 strokes. Why would I want to do this? Well, I admit I heard someone recently talking about this and I got really excited by it. To say as much as possible in as few strokes as possible. I think this is the goal of most painters. After doing this I realized many things. #1, most of my portraits have a whole lot more than 100 strokes, and #2 in order to be economical, I needed to connect shapes in one stroke. To do this, a lot of paint needed to be loaded on my brush so I would be able to complete the stroke. I created some neat effects by not totally mixing my paint on the palette and having different colors show up by twisting the brush on the surface, especially in the hair. Also, you would think that it would be pretty quick just painting 100 strokes, but no, every stroke had to count, every stroke needed to be thought out carefully and placed precisely. 3 hours and I have to admit it took me 112 strokes. Yeah, I cheated, I couldn't help myself. I was having some chin issues. No, It's not ready for the framer, this was just an exercise, I was being a student today. It's not the best thing I've ever done, but I am not embarrassed to show you my experiment. Take this challenge yourself, it doesn't need to be a portrait, try a landscape or stll life, be a student, and let me know how you did.