Raven

by David R. Darrow 8" x 10" (20.3cm x 25.4cm)
Oil on Stretched Canvas SOLD Collection of Harold Roe
Brentwood, TN – USA

About This Painting

Okay, so I have been "gone" for a while from my Everyday Paintings. Don't everybody write at once.

Just kidding.

Oh, man, what a month it has been. So many irons in the fire, so many projects going on, enhanced only by occasional early morning insomnia — which is where this painting began.

I didn't actually mean to do this painting. I just couldn't get back to sleep one morning at about 4am, so I looked around for something to do. TV is really boring at 4am, unless you want to see the next-generation-floor-sweeper for only wait!don'tansweryet! ... $19.95.

So, there was this scrap of canvas sitting around the studio, a year old photo of my middle daughter in a leotard in perfect chiaroscuro lighting, and some charcoal.

I felt like drawing, really... not painting. It's fun sometimes to just grab a little vine charcoal and start swinging it around like in a workshop to see what will reveal itself.

And the next thing I know, I'm doing a charcoal portrait on canvas, and it started to feel like I was teaching again, and I started pretending that — aside from my jammies — I was in front of a room full of students giving a demo, like I'll do in my upcoming Figure and Portrait Painting workshop later this year (search the Internet for more details), and this portrait just happened.

Now, I drew with the intention of painting over it — a good, solid under-drawing always helps a painting — but I did put a little more detail in the drawing than necessary.

Then I decided to set up a video camera and tape the whole painting process, start to finish, minus the charcoal drawing. I'll be able to use that as a teaching tool later.

So, this is the painting that emerged from about 90 minutes of furious mixing, scooping and dabbing. It's fairly thick paint, very painterly and 100% freehand.

Oh, and the title: Emily used to dye her hair raven black.

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