Roslyn

by David R. Darrow 5" x 7" (12.7cm x 17.78cm)
Oil on Panel SOLD Collection of Rocky and Judith Hafdahl
San Juan Capistrano, CA – USA

About This Painting

As I begin my journey of "Everyday Paintings" I do not know what is to be. I had the goal recently of painting 52 heads in a year... one a week.

Then it dawned on me that it would be hard to find 52 heads worthy of painting. Magazine models are too softly lit. And it's hard to find images that mimic the lighting of a studio or workshop environment.

And finding 52 people to pose was out of the question.

So I started with my photo library, and found this picture of Roslyn which I lit and shot for a "maybe painting" several years ago when she and her family were visiting. She is the daughter of Terri, with whom I went to high school from 1972-1975. Terri was in my art classes with me, and thanks to the unforeseen but eventual development of the Internet, we were able to get in contact again after decades.

When we did get in contact again, we traded family pictures by e-mail so we could see if and how the years had made changes to the high school faces we remembered.

Terri looked the same. The same young face from 25 years earlier. Only now she had a husband and a daughter. And when I looked at her daughter in the picture I saw a rare, gentle, confident beauty surrounded by flowing raven hair. I told Terri that if she was ever on the West Coast, I would like to paint her daughter.

Not many months later, they visited, and I took some time to shoot portrait photos of Roslyn, not knowing when I'd get around to painting her.

Seems like a good time, now.

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