Press!

Charley Parker, over at Lines and Colors, has written up a generous piece about me and my San Diego Weekly Reader Article. Thank you, Charley!

Watchful

by David R. Darrow 10" x 8" (25.4cm x 20.3cm)
Oil on Canvas Panel
SOLD Collection of Sara Scribner
Enid, OK – USA

About This Painting

"My wife Megen called me on her way home from Costco tonight and told me about you approaching her," the e-mail from John began. "She was very flattered."

That was nice, I thought. I remember her distinctly. I had gone to the photo section to pick up a large print of a painting I had done recently to give to the model for that painting, as is my custom.

Megen, whom I had never met, was being served as I found a place to wait at the end of the short line. She glanced my direction as I approached the counter, and immediately left a visual impression on me. Her eyes were kind and warm, and there was a gentleness to her face that moved me.

I tried not to stare, but I was already thinking can I paint you?

The funny thing about asking a stranger if I can paint him or her, is that I know at first glance if they "are a painting waiting to happen." I really do. But I have this internal sense that if I were to ask them as soon as I think such a thought, they will think I am a nut. "How could you possibly think that? You just now saw me!"

So, I look for signs. And at that moment, Megen was done with her business and walked away before I could even form a sentence. That's a sign. Forget it, David.

Well, my turn at the photo center, and I discovered a problem with my print, so they graciously offered to reprint it while I wait. Ten minutes later, after wandering and wishing through the HDTV section I picked up my replacement print and headed out, only to notice that Megen was still in the store, and was just approaching the customer service desk.

Seemed like a sign to me. So I walked over to her and handed her my card and asked if I could paint her.

Her face lit up in the most dazzling smile. She said she'd consider it. By the time I got home, her husband had already written to me. In his e-mail he added that his wife had told him that the first thing that came to her mind was “You don’t want to paint me you should see my kids.”

Pretty and modest. I like that. I had that sense about her the moment I saw her.

John went on, "I wanted to say 'Thank You' for making my wife’s day and to invite ourselves to meet you."

I still have not met John, though obviously I have met his wife, and I have to tell you, she made my day. And I did briefly meet their kids, and they are indeed gorgeous, and sweet! Precious little ones. I hope I get to paint them someday soon.

It is always a joy to paint one of God's naturally beautiful creations.  ◙

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Alexandra - Original Oil by David R. Darrow

by David R. Darrow 11" x 14" (27.9cm x 35.6cm)
Oil on Stretched Canvas
SOLD Collection of Tim Clarke
Pacific Grove, CA – USA

About This Painting

I do private in-home painting lessons in the San Diego area, largely by demonstration and 'thinking out loud" while I paint for the student. This gives the student both the visual feedback of how I am mixing my colors and applying them, and what I am thinking at the moment, so they get the "whys" answered.

This was painted last year in one such session. I am taking it off my shelf forever and offering it to the highest bidder. I suspect an art student might want it to have to study, so I am putting it out there for a low starting bid of 5 dollars — about the price of the canvas and well within reach of all but the most pitifully broke art student.

Please note that this is somewhat 'unfinished' — especially at the bottom, which is why I have shown the entire canvas.  ◙

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Encouraging E

by David R. Darrow 6-1/2" x 13-3/4" (16.5cm x 34.9cm)
Oil on Canvas Panel
SOLD Collection of Frederica Anderson
Amarillo, TX – USA

About This Painting

An artist friend e-mailed me yesterday sounding like, well... like a lot of artists I have talked with feel from time to time: blocked.

There's nothing more discouraging to a competent artist such as E than to feel that you have somehow used up the last bit of creativity and skill you'll ever have.

I know. I have been there.

My advice to E was based on something I stumbled on back in 2000, and was actually a variation of a then-popular quote: Dance Like No One Is Watching. For me, it mutated into Paint Like You Just Don't Care. My hunch was that E, who has a somewhat meticulous style and an elaborate process of preparation, was frozen in fatigue and fear. For me, the symptoms of fear are many and varied forms of procrastination masquerading as professional preparation. Somewhere deep inside I know that I cannot possibly do a bad painting if I never actually start it. And I feel better about not starting it if I am actually doing something useful or even necessary.

The cure? Stop caring.

For many artists there is a tactile quality to the job that cannot be explained or transferred. An artist can rub a seemingly ordinary corner of a piece of paper between his thumb and index finger and tell immediately if he or she will enjoy drawing on it. Certain paints do not feel as good as others. Sometimes a canvas and a loaded brush can just feel fantastic as the bristles slide over the weave, slathering thick paint over the surface.

There are subtle vibrations that make their way up from the canvas through the brush handle, to the fingers and into the nervous system, and at times these feelings can be either pleasurable or irritating.

The way to get past the pain that is blocking you is simply to make it fun again. And it can be fun if you don't care. Forget the stretcher bars — tape a piece of scrap canvas to a piece of wood, and start painting in the next three minutes.

Find a picture with interesting lighting. Put out a limited palette (in my case, Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin Crimson and Yellow Ochre, with Black and White). Grab a big fat brush, mix something messy and dark and start painting. Feel the thing that got you into painting in the first place. Get some pleasure back into your work.

And whatever you do, don't make the mistake of caring.

I decided to taste a sample of my own medicine after hitting the send button to E. I grabbed a photo I had received from a friend in France which was taken with a cellphone camera. This became the image reference for my interpretation of these shapes in paint. It was so much fun that I couldn't stop!

And — go figure — I ended up liking the finished painting. When it's dry I am going to mount it on a masonite panel and trim it down. So, the dimensions are "approximate" – give or take a quarter inch either direction.

I guess all that is the long way around the block just to say if you're not careful, you might enjoy yourself and do a good painting.  ◙

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San Elijo Lagoon

by David R. Darrow 14" x 11" (35.6cm x 27.9cm)
Oil on Canvas Panel
SOLD Collection of Jolie Elman
Glendora, CA – USA

About This Painting

So what does a full-time artist do on his day off? Same thing: painting.

Our nation celebrated another year of Independence and Freedom yesterday... both are pretty important concepts to Americans, though I am not too sure how greatly they are appreciated anymore — since we grow up with them, and that's just how things are.

I exercised my Freedom of Expression by getting up at 5:00 am and meeting a Canadian for a morning Plein Air session at San Elijo (san-el-EE-ho) Lagoon, in Cardiff by the Sea, CA. [Google Map]. We positioned ourselves about 3/4 of a mile from the beach, looking directly west across the lagoon. It was overcast, a little misty and very quiet. The only sounds were distant cars and local wildlife: seaguls, egrets and fish jumping out of the still water to catch bugs for an instant breakfast.

My painting partner for the day was Holly, who, like me, had an illustration career that kept her indoors for the better part of her creative life, so for each of us, the opportunity to go outside and paint sounds more like a play day. And it makes working on a national holiday seem not-so-insane.

Bonus: unlike working alone in a studio, there's someone to talk with.

Or maybe just talk to.

Holly asserts, with photographic documentation, that I just painted and talked. I think she did all the talking, but I don't have any photos to prove it.

She's lucky I spoke to her at all after she hit the ground laughing like some kind of Canadian Tickle-Me-Elmo doll when my painting blew off my easel landing on the ground exactly the way toast and jam always does: gooey side down. She was still laughing as I wiped the whole painting off the canvas with a rag and started over.

Well, this fresh start ended up being a good thing. Also, some of you artists that subscribe to my mailing list might appreciate knowing that this was done with a limited palette: Alizarin Crimson, Yellow Ochre, and Cobalt Blue, plus black and white. The limited palette does two things: first, it really forces me to concentrate on values instead of hues, and second, it unifies the painting, since every brush stroke likely has all the other colors in it. I did not rinse my brush until the painting was done... just constantly wiped it off on my rag.

By the way, if you are not familiar with the term plein air, it is French for open air and traditionally describes the genre of paintings that are done outdoors with the intent of quickly capturing the feeling of open air.

Personally, I have expanded that definition to include: The relatively short expanse of space between the easel and the ground. i.e. — "David watched in helpless horror as his painting plummeted through plein air coming to rest at his feet."  ◙

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Chicago Dave

by David R. Darrow 8" x 8" (20.3cm x 20.3cm)
Oil on Stretched Canvas
SOLD Collection of Cruz Melf
Bolingbrook, IL – USA

About This Painting

I've painted this fellow before.

He's a friend with whom I have a lot in common. And it turns out he's a great character model. The fact that he's a musician makes me want to use him as a musician model, obviously, but he's so full of life and is such fun to talk and laugh with that it's just tempting to see what else we can come up with using his ambiguous mug.

Dave's also from Chicago, and makes it no secret. He's been here — oh, I don't know how long — and still waxes on about Chicago. In less lucid moments he even feigns that accent, where you can just about imagine him hamming, "da' Bears."

Chicago Dave is the only model I can remember telling me to "try the light from below, like 'dis." And the only one whose 'advice' I might follow... and so I tried it, reluctantly.

Loved it.

It reminded me immediately of all the campfire spooky stories with the obligatory flashlight pointed up from below. If there is such a thing as ominous lighting, this is it.

It's also fascinating what this reversed lighting does to facial structure and an otherwise kind face. And it was fun to paint Chicago Dave in this upside-down lighting.

For me, and possibly him, it was a very abstract experience.  ◙

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My 15 Minutes of Fame

If you don't count the time I was on Wheel of Fortune, on June 22, 1980 (it's true), I finally got my Andy-Warhol-guaranteed 15-minutes of fame.

Oh sure, you know me as the Everyday Paintings guy, but San Diego County folks get an entire article about me in the cover story of this week's San Diego Reader, a free, weekly publication that gets distributed all over the county at locations such as pizza places, 7-Elevens and Circle-K convenience stores. You know: places where wealthy art buyers go for a heads-up on up-and-coming, 50-year-old artists.

The author of the 8000-word cover story, Geoff Bouvier, e-mailed me in March listing his substantial credentials, and asked me if he could do a story about the experience of getting one's portrait painted. He wanted to write it from the perspective of the paintee but also learn about the whole process from the painter. Sounded interesting to me.

I agreed to it, and managed to work it all into my schedule, which at the time, back in March and April, was about as easy as juggling porcupines.

Well, yesterday was the big day, and the published Readers have been distributed.

If you are one of my San Diego neighbors and you're interested in reading the article and owning a copy, run out and get one today... they typically go quite fast.

Anyone else interested in reading the article? You have two choices:

• The article online at the Reader: How To Paint A Portrait
• The same article on my site, annotated and illuminated with my comments and photos.

Jessi

by David R. Darrow 9" x 9" (22.9cm x 22.9cm)
Oil on Canvas Panel
SOLD Collection of Dean E. Bailiff
Palm Harbor, FL – USA

About This Painting

My wife invited me out for a beer one evening last week. We met at our favorite pizza and beer place in Carlsbad after a long day for each of us, in an already long week full of ups and downs.

She placed the order at the counter and I wandered outside to find a spot in the warm summer evening air. I could see it would be a challenge — with summer in a beach town off to its official start, it seemed everyone in town had gone from the beach to Pizza Port to wind down before heading home.

I plopped my superfluous jacket down across the mostly-crowded picnic-style table, at the same time asking the guests to my left if there was room for my wife and I to squeeze in and sit across from each other. As the head of household gave me a murky response along the lines of "we're expecting a few more" a couple to the right of where I was trying to squeeze in suddenly scooted further down, making more room and said definitively, "Sure! Have a seat."

I looked back at the gentleman who had attempted to decline our presence and said with a smile, "I like their answer better."

Just then my wife showed up with our cold beers and I scurried around the table and sat down next to Jessi, opening the seat across from me and next to Josh for my wife.

We would learn that they had just recently met and were out getting to know each other better.

The two of them were just plain fun folks. We talked easily, joked and laughed together like old friends that had just met. Unusually friendly, I thought. A breath of fresh air.

Eventually the conversation got around the the traditional so-what-do-you-dos and Jessi, a pretty mid-twenties brunette dipped into her purse quickly pulling out two business cards announcing that she is a massage therapist working her day job at what is arguably the finest five-star spa and resort in San Diego County, and at the top of many lists worldwide. We were impressed.

She went on to tell us she trained at Lauterstein-Conway School of Massage in Austin, TX, and was recruited from school directly to this prestigious position in San Diego. "That credential will never be any lower than first position on my resume," she beamed.

Josh — whom I hope to convince to sit for a painting soon, too — is, as we later learned, an officer in the military, having already served 2 tours in Iraq.

Now, I am a scraggly-haired, sun-weathered, California-grown, has-been surfer/artist, and when I ask a short-haired fellow if he's in the military, the typical response is a hesitant yet authoritative "Yes, sir." I guess I might indeed look like a peacenik from decades ago, you know, from the pictures in Time-Life, but honestly, I admire these brace young men and women for taking on the exhausting, dangerous and now highly controversial task of serving our country and the cause of freedom in so many different capacities, and so I stood to shake his hand, smiled and said "It's truly an honor to meet you, sir."

Eventually, the conversation got around to Teresa's work, and finally mine. "I'm an artist. I paint portraits and stuff," I nonchalaunted. Turning to Jessi, I added, "You have great eyes. Can I paint you?"

"Sure! That'd be great," she shot back. And so, just like that, it was settled.

She's as fascinating to paint as to know.

And the whole thing has been a confirmation that it is often serendipitous to talk to complete strangers.  ◙

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Checkin' The Fit

by David R. Darrow 8" x 10" (20.3cm x 25.4cm)
Oil on Panel
SOLD Collection of Jeffery McCabe
Port Huron, MI – USA

About This Painting

In very few professions these days, the hat still makes the man.

I live in California, where the only people that wear hats as part of their job, anymore, are cowboys, baseball players and workers in hard-hat areas.

I sometimes wish I lived in the '30s and '40s when even California men wore hats to work, to dinner parties, to town – on a date.

I always fancied myself a hat-person. I got myself a little English-style brimmed cap when I was thirteen. It didn't fit well, though. I have a deep head, front to back... even size XL will give me a headache. I like to think that God gave me extra thinkin' room, for coming up with more ideas, pictures and words.

I console myself with that thought when I walk out of hat stores with nothing on my head.

It's funny, too, because you really can't fake it. People can tell if you're a real cowboy by the look of your hat. And there are such a variety of cowboy hats out there, too. People like to keep them neat and clean, others like to crumple them up and make them look well-worn, some like straw, others leather, others felt.

It's a distinctive American thing, too, the cowboy hat. And getting a good fit is what it's about.

My oldest son, Drew, modeled for this painting. You'll see more of him the near future.  ◙

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Green Chair

by David R. Darrow 8" x 8" (20.3cm x 20.3cm)
Oil on Stretched Canvas
Framed and Ready to Hang
SOLD
Collection of Randall and Valerie Hasson
Santa Fe, NM - USA

About This Painting

I always love it when an artist names the painting after, perhaps, the least important part of the painting.

Then again, naming it Oh my gosh! You have really grown up! wouldn't work. And Beautiful Young Lady is rather banal. Or, as my daughter would say: Duh!

Holly, my model in the Green Chair, is the daughter of a friend and fellow artist, Randall M. Hasson and his wife Valerie. (Take a look at his work. His art is amazing. He does large paintings that are a combination of painted subject matter layered with amazing quotations, poetry and scripture in a variety of lettering styles and calligraphy. You've never seen anything like it. His work has to be seen in person to really get the intensity of his work.)

But enough about him.

His daughter was 12 or 13 when I first met Randy and his family. Randy was just developing the style of his work at the time, and we hit it off as budding artists. Mutual back-patters always make good friends.

Well, four years later, Randy opened a gallery for his work and I was invited to the opening. And standing next to him when I arrived was this tall, elegant, striking young woman, now 16, whom I barely recognized as "little Holly" from four years earlier, the last time I had seen her.

I asked if I could shoot some reference photos of her for a maybe-painting someday, and last year ran across those photos and put together this head study of Holly's beautiful features and sculpturesque face.

It hung in a small gallery for a year, and now it's time for it to be seen by a wider audience.

This painting is framed in an imported, distressed gold-metal-leaf frame and is ready to hang.  ◙

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Stolen Glory

by David R. Darrow 12" x 5" (30.5cm x 12.7cm)
Oil on Panel
SOLD Collection of Bridget Baker
Deer Park, IL – USA

About This Painting

There's a woman in my old neighborhood who loves gardening and especially tending her roses. I commented that this one beautiful variety, with its brilliant yellow-orange center and deep magenta "blush," was one of the most beautiful roses I'd ever seen.

She told me it is a "Chris Evert."

"Like the tennis player?"

"Named after her," I was told. I never knew about that kind of thing. And I never forgot this was a Chris Evert rose. This particular bush produced rose after rose of incredible shape and intense color.

For weeks at a time recently, however, I rarely saw the woman... working too many hours I surmised. Scurrying off early in the morning and not seen again until after dark. But the roses bloomed day after day into perfect blossoms, then fluffed and then dropped their petals in piles all around, and died. Day after day I walked by these perfect roses watching this sad cycle occur again and again.

One morning I saw this perfect bloom, and almost in anger that it would suffer a similar fate, I grabbed my clippers and walked straight out to the rose bush and brazenly cut the blossom off and took it inside.

I never heard a word about it from the woman. Not a word.

The irony was that I had to end its life to enjoy it. Which was, in my opinion, much better than being neglected.

And I was able to extend its life by painting its portrait.  ◙

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Unforeseen Conclusion

by David R. Darrow 13-7/8" x 8" (35.2cm x 20.3cm)
Oil on Canvas Panel
This painting is not framed
Click here to bid on eBay
Opening Bid: $99 / Buy It Now™ $399.00 Ends: Thursday, June 7, 2007 at 1:55 PM (Pacific Time)

About This Painting

This may seem a little odd, and I want to assure you I have not slipped into "my dark period..." This is just a slightly different approach to finding and representing beauty in everyday things.

On my first morning in my new place, I awoke to find this bird on my balcony, at the foot of the sliding glass doors. She likely died on impact, trying to fly through what she thought was an open passage, instead coming to this unforeseen conclusion.

I stared for a moment, then muttered aloud, sadly but somewhat understandingly, "Didn't see that coming, did you?"

I thought briefly about how to properly dispose of this beautiful but lifeless creature and suddenly flashed on a time when my oldest sister Jan helped me put to rest my pet hamster. I was 12; she was 18.

Late that night I was awakened by noise under my bed, and when I peeked under, I saw that the escaped hamster had met his demise via a higher link on the food chain, our cat.

Jan helped me coax the 'toy' away from the cat, and then she prepared a shoebox lined with tissue into which to lay its body for disposal. We both wanted a little diginity for the little fellow under such otherwise humbling circumstances.

All this flashed through my mind as I gathered up the bird. It was right about at that moment that I decided I would do a painting about this...

I see metaphors... they're everywhere. Sometimes they don't even know they're metaphors.

Death had come to us both.

I had slept in my new place only once and, on my first morning, this is what I awoke to. Far from being 'creeped out' I just felt what I felt... there are times in life when you start off on something wonderful and just don't see how it's going to end.

Four years ago, I stood on a beach marrying the woman I was sure was the love of my life, my closest friend, the woman I wanted holding my hand when I passed from this life. From there, on that clear, sunny day I could not have seen the actual conclusion that lay ahead in the distance. Today I live alone.

Unlike this bird, though, my life is not over. I've found a new place to live. A new place to paint. A new place to think. To move on.

But it is very still, and very quiet now.  ◙

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Starting Over

I never painted 74 new paintings in a year before. And I probably never would have if I had not set the goal of painting 365 paintings in a year, or rather, 30 paintings in 30 days, ongoing. Having failed at an initial [and naive] goal, I succeeded in accomplishing something I likely never would have. Yesterday I officially started over. It's been nearly 2 months since my last Everyday Painting, interrupted by a few significant things in my life, namely a large commission, a demonstration commission, and, most significantly, marital separation (I had to move out for medical reasons: she was sick of me). I actually moved into my new apartment/studio at the beginning of May, but just yesterday completed setting my studio back up ready for painting. Besides the grueling work of moving all my stuff out of my old place, putting it into a truck and then hauling it all back out at the next place and then up 4 flights of stairs, there was the additional, previously unknown inconvenience of the notice to vacate for two days while the owners tented and fumigated the entire complex. Mine is the middle circus tent, top floor. (Where's the Google Earth camera when you need it?) So yesterday I sat down and started a painting, and I will be posting it today. Starting over has never been as significant to me as is does today.

Crate Expectations

Building a Crate
For Shipping a Painting
Well, it's not like waving goodbye to your kid on a school bus on his first day of Kindergarten... but it's close. If I can avoid putting a 32 x 40 painting in the hands of a courier again for the rest of my life, I will likely have fewer gray hairs. Not that I don't trust FedEx — after all, both of my sons work for that fine company — but my anxiety over shipping hit me before I even got the painting started, which, as it turned out, was a good thing. Rule #1: If you are shipping out an unframed painting, build the crate after you have stretched your canvas, but before you start painting. You don't want sawdust in the paint.

Unlike most of the things I have learned in my life I did not learn this the hard way. I am delighted to tell you I actually thought of this in advance.

As I contemplated what this shipping crate should look and function like, I decided to head over to Home Depot to look at wood. This was not a tough decision. For me, thinking about being inside a Home Depot takes about as much forethought as Michael Moore gives to going into a Krispy Kreme. I'm there. I picked out my wood, did a little measuring and then sat down and did some figuring on a scrap of paper which a guy in the Windows Department gave me. With those figures in mind, I grabbed a sheet of 1/8" luan mahogany (door skin) and headed over to the cutting area and had the fellow cut two panels to size so I could then go home and build this box. I then glued and nailed these spacers around the bottom-inside of it, to keep the painting off the bottom skin, and away from the sides. I added FedEx-friendly handles to one side, encouraging them to carry it with those, and to stand it up on edge when not carrying it. Then I made some cleats to hold the painting down to the spacers, and away from the "lid-skin." These were all pre-drilled and marked with numbers so I could re-assemble the crate on shipping day without making new saw-dust that might fall on the painting surface. I carefully set the 32" x 40" portrait inside and onto the spacers. I then screwed on all the cleats (10 of them) which I had previously attached when the canvas was unpainted (bare), and which I had numbered and marked with a line on the cleat and the frame, so that I could easily align them again with their individual holes. With the painting so firmly held in place by the cleats that it actually added strength to the crate, I dropped the top skin into the pre-dadoed reveal on the top, and screwed about 50 wide-head screws on to hold the top skin into the groove, adding corners made from scrap 1/8" "skin" for extra strength and durability. I added a "strap" of scrap luan for added strength across the middle, and duct-taped the edges down so it wouldn't catch on anything in shipping. I then drove it to FedEx — where I got a compliment on my crate from a customer. I need to give credit to Morgan Weistling, a fantastic painter and dearest of friends, who advised me when I called asking for suggestions. His advice: make it as light as you can to encourage them to carry it, not fork-lift it and add handles to suggest the same. He also advised me to use FedEx, as he has had the best handling and treatment from them, out of all the major carriers. I will not sleep for 2 days.

Click here to watch a little movie of a 3D fly-through of my crate. Made with Google Sketch-up. A free modeling program for Mac or PC! The blue, translucent rectangles represent the as-yet unattached bottom and lid, which would later be dropped into place.

Update It arrived safely 2 days later, and, according to my client, looked like it had been handled gently all the way from CA to KS. Whew! And they loved the painting. In my accompanying letter to them, asking them to consider it for two weeks before asking for changes, if any, my client responded:

David, Sorry, I would like to tell you to do this or that to the picture... Impossible, it looks absolutely perfect right now! The three things I was hoping to get... you got. 1. It is a damn good work of art. 2. It looks just like her. 3. You actually "caught" her. The mannerisms, etc.

That totally makes my day.

Anne: A Completed Portrait

by David R. Darrow 32" x 40" (81.3cm x 101.6cm)
Oil on Belgian Linen
Not For Sale
Private Collection

About This Painting

It's done!

And with client approval and acceptance I can ship it this week.

I am delighted with the result. It did not "fly off my brush with ease" as these things go with some artists... this has been a lot of work, and I have enjoyed the struggle.

I finished it last night, poured a glass of cabernet sauvignon and toasted my worthy adversary: Portrait of Anne. I have been wrestling with her the better part of a month — not every day, but most days.

She has been a delight to paint. An absolutely lovely face, and a distinctly handsome woman [1] and it was a pleasure to get to know her personally prior to starting this painting.

I am told by her husband Charles, who commissioned this as a symbol of gratitude for the love of his life for their 20th anniversary, that it will hang in the same room in which the reference material was gathered for this painting, in their modest Kansas home.  ◙

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Someday...

by David R. Darrow 11" x 14" (27.9cm x 35.6cm)
Oil on Belgian Linen Panel
SOLD Collection of Anthepy Nelson
Timonium, MD – USA

About This Painting

Her large, beautiful, but longing eyes betrayed her. She looked as if she wanted to be somewhere else.

She had a servant's heart, a warm smile, easily able to be chatty with those on whom she waited each day. She was beyond dutiful when performing her tasks. She was the best around. And nothing about the moment I caught her eyes staring at a distant hope "somewhere out there" diminished the excellence of her work, her attitude, her presence.

In a moment of stolen rest, twisting at the waist to wring out the morning's aches and tension, she stood staring at something beyond the physical window that only she could see, for its reality was in her mind, not outside.

Jamie, who modeled for this painting, caught my artist's eye one morning when I was out to breakfast with my daughter. She laughed easily, chatted at each of the tables in her station, looked each person in the eye making each feel as though we were all old friends. She's a waitress at a popular breakfast chain, and my daughter and I were out for pancakes and eggs.

"Would you like sausage or bacon with your breakfast, sir?"

"Bacon, please. And I'd like you to consider modeling for a painting."

Later that week, she did.  ◙

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Reflections on a Fall Morning

by David R. Darrow 12" x 9" (30.5cm x 22.9cm)
Oil on Belgian Linen Panel
SOLD Collection of Doris Darrow
Sunnyvale, CA – USA
Happy 79th Birthday, Mom!

About This Painting

Weather or not...

That is not a typo, it's a pun.

I joined a group of plein air painters at San Diego's Balboa Park, once the site of a World's Fair one Fall morning to paint sites on the grounds.

There is a gorgeous reflecting pond and Arboretum there, and immediately after setting up my French Easel, it began to drizzle. That's no big deal when painting in oil... the water is repelled by the oil in the paint, so I decided to stick it out and keep painting.

Three hours later the precipitation had increased to actual, bona fide raining and I decided to pack it up, and finish the painting later from snapshots.  ◙

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Oil Sketch - Geoff

Geoff wanted the whole experience of getting a portrait done, so I spared him nothing. The first day started with my arrival at his house, him inviting me in, and his eyes bugging out of his head — albeit politely — as I began to load my stuff into his house. The majority of my stuff was more related to photography and video: lighting, stands, audio mixer, microphone, lots of cords and wires... and the minority were essentials: French easel, paints, canvas, brushes. To loosen up and get my head in an abstract place, I grabbed a gessoed luan mahogany panel, 11 x 14, and began painting freehand rapidly, squishing paint here and there with no underdrawing, no toning. After about an hour (would have been quicker if were weren't having such a fascinating conversation that demanded non-visual parts of my brain), I set my brushes down, flipped the board around so Geoff could see it, and said , "Here's a quick oil portrait of you that I am proud to say barely resembles you." His girlfriend, who visited the following day, said she kinda thought it looked like maybe his 12-year-old-son, in a way, if, you know, he had one.

Michelle in Conte

by David R. Darrow 12" x 14" (30.5cm x 35.6cm)
Conte on Smooth Newsprint This painting is not framed Click here to bid on eBay
Opening Bid: $19.95 / Buy It Now™ $29.95 Ends: Friday, April 20, 2007 at 7:21 PM (Pacific Time)

About This Drawing

I've decided to post some of my Life Drawings on eBay for sale.

Each of them that I sell is a one-of-a-kind original from the hand, eyes and experience of David R. Darrow. That's me.

These were usually done as demonstrations when I was teaching Life Drawing at a local college. They are all done on 18" x 24" smooth newsprint — the favorite of students and teachers, but not inherently archival. Newsprint is known to yellow and get brittle over time, which I think adds to the character of it. If mounted properly, matted with acid-free mat board, and protected with glass, these drawings can last for decades and look quite elegant.

I recommend taking your drawing to a Poster and Framing shop at a local mall and have them dry-mount it on foam-core. They can also trim it to your frame size, help you with matting, and frame it too, if you want. The mounting and foam-core is about $10, last I checked.

Some of these will be listed as auctions and others in my eBay store.

You may want to take a moment to bookmark my store by name: Everyday Paintings (just like my art website, only different)

The shipping cost covers double mailing tubes, insurance and the shipping weight. If you purchase more than one of these drawings you may have each additional drawing for $19.95 with free shipping if all are shipped together. I will provide the discount on the invoice, or if that is not possible, I will refund the portion that is overpaid, immediately, through Paypal. (It's complicated at my end, but it works).

Please ignore the picture and description of the shipping carton at the bottom of this page... that is for my paintings and has nothing to do with this auction  ◙

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Simultaneous Commissions

I got a rush job that could lead to bigger things (more on that later) so this weekend I have been doing an art house call, so to speak. Geoff, the man in the pictures, is commissioning an oil portrait of his likeness (more on that later) and so I have taken about as much of my studio and lighting and video and audio equipment to his home 35 miles away, and set up in his living room to go through the process. Geoff — knowing that it's a much shorter event for each of us if we just get together and get to know each other for a couple hours, maybe do some charcoal and then color sketches and then shoot reference photos for me to use in the studio — wanted the real deal, the old-fashioned sitting; an "I'm sitting for a portrait" experience. He's allowing me the privilege of videotaping over my shoulder while I draw and paint to eventually use for an instructional demo DVD (more on that later). Due to several forms of upheaval and inconvenient transitions going on in my life (more on that later) as well as the currently diminutive size of my studio, we could not do the work at my location, and so we chose his. It has been surprisingly rattling to my confidence to finally get set up in his home (about an hour and a half of set-up) and then draw in front of him. I'm not sure why. I scrapped the first drawing (not shown) and started over again. The drawing to the right is what I arrived at by the time my sketch was done and he had to leave for work. Before he got up from his seat, I shot a few reference photos, and, back in my studio this afternoon, studied my drawing and the photos and solved the problems related to why it wasn't looking enough like him. The sketch at the top of this post is the final charcoal under-drawing on an acrylic-toned canvas that will be covered in oil paint tomorrow. More on that later.

Promise

by David R. Darrow 7" x 10" (17.8cm x 25.4cm)
Oil on Belgian Linen Panel SOLD Collection of Svietlana T. Franke
Baltimore, MD – USA

About This Painting

Whenever I look through a camera lens, I start seeing framed pictures. Usually I see framed paintings, to be more specific.

When I saw this young woman sitting in this lighting, I asked if I could take some pictures of her. I told her that this particular lighting would make for a wonderful head-study and that I'd like to do a painting or drawing of her someday.

Getting around to it has been a bit of a challenge.

I met her in my second term at Art Center College of Design — coming up on 30 years ago — when I took the picture on which this painting is based. I mostly wanted to take her picture because I thought she was pretty and I liked her.

I found an old box of slides the other day, and when I saw this image again after all these years, I thought again that "this particular lighting would make for a wonderful head-study."

And so I guess I have kept that promise, just like it was yesterday. Only now I have no idea where she is. I haven't seen her since college.  ◙

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Searching

by David R. Darrow 8" x 8" (20.3cm x 20.3cm)
Oil on Canvas on Birch Panel Available in my eBay Store
Price: $350.00 — Or Make an Offer

About This Painting

I met this fascinating fellow when I stopped in at a local place for a cold drink on a summer day four or five years ago.

He recently posed for me.

There are some days here on the California coast that simply insist that you pour something soothing down your parched throat, further demanding that it had better have the right flavor.

I am not much of a fan of beer.

Not since I got spoiled by the hand-crafted ale made at Carlsbad Brewing Company's Pizza Port right here in my town. To someone who has not found delight in award-winning ale versus a cold beer, I can only describe it as the difference between, say, Yuban or Folgers coffee and a cup of espresso made with a fine Italian espresso machine and the skilled barista creating it.

So, when I stopped in for a chilled ale one day a few years ago, I met Dave. Well, you don't really meet Dave. Dave is part of the atmosphere at Pizza Port.

You experience Dave.

This day he was — as he always is, I have since learned — working on his own personal record on the pinball machine, on which he also held the game's top score until his 15-year-old daughter recently topped him.

When Dave has had enough of the machine that eventually always wins, he backs away, gives it a respectful chin-up reverse nod, and goes out to the outer courtyard with his now-warm glass of ale and mingles with the crowd. Sometimes he retrieves his white-lacquer, steel-string, acoustic guitar from someone who has been "watching it for him" and breaks into just about any popular tune, folk or rock, from the 1950s on forward. He seemingly knows them all.

Dave has done just about everything, I recently learned when I sat down with him and talked mano y mano for about three hours. He's done carpentry, accounting, ditch-digging, welding, auto-mechanic, you name it... but what he always wanted to be — and still laments that it never happened for him despite years on the circuit — was a professional musician. He plays several instruments, wails on the guitar, sings with a decent rock-baritone-to-second-tenor, powerful voice, possesses a performer's heart, and has a head full of knowledge about anything from the US government, crack-pot laws, rock and roll, automobiles and biblical eschatology — the latter being the topic of the bulk of the conversation for those three hours.

The conversation was lively and kept my attention well-enough... but part of the way through, and as a complete non-sequitur — since there really is no way to ease up to such a thing — I cut in with, "Hey, can I paint your portrait?" If I didn't ask him at that moment, I would not be able to listen attentively to much more of the conversation, since, despite the engaging subject, my mind was already beginning to get lost in color mixes and the direction of my brushstrokes in the painting of him I was doing in my head while his voice seemed to be fading into echoing oblivion.

He replied with a twinkle in his eye that by such a request he could tell I chose only the finest-looking models to paint, and that he could therefore trust me as a great artist, and that he would gladly pose. Then he bellowed a hearty laugh and raised his glass of ale for me to do the same.

We clinked the deal right there, and went on talking about the Bible the rest of the night. I am glad to have gotten to know Dave.

I know I will paint him again.  ◙

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Progress: Anne

Yes, progress is being made, and for the most part, it's not 'ready for presentation' most of the time. To show all the steps or stages, or shoot a picture every hour on the hour would feel too much like someone is watching over my shoulder. More unnerving than creepy. Besides that, to paint something so large and make it accurate, there's a place I have to go in my head that is neither automatic nor explainable. In some ways it's mindless — not thinking about what I am painting (an eye, a cheek, a neck or hair), but rather what are the shapes and hues, values and edges that make it look good?. To snap out of such a mental place is a bit abrupt and disquieting. So I just paint on. I start, of course, with a blank canvas. This one, at 32" wide by 40" high (81cm x 101cm) stares back at me like Goliath to this Little David. "Go on... I dare you," it taunts. No it's really not that bad. Even if Norman Rockwell said it better, a blank canvas just has to be dealt with. Dangling prepositions notwithstanding. The first thing I have to do is tone the canvas. This serves at least 2 purposes: One is to get rid of all that glaring white which will effectively fool my eyes while I paint, likely resulting in too light of a painting. The second it to get a darker tone down into the valleys of the canvas weave. Often when painting, a gentle brush stroke will apply paint only to the high-points of the canvas texture, (the threads and crossovers of the woven linen) leaving the valleys (the space between threads) untouched, revealing the white acrylic (in the case of this Classens 166 acrylic-primed Belgian Linen) priming. The result is an unpleasant bright speckling, especially in darker passages. Working very quickly due to the extremely quick drying time of acrylic tube paint, with my left hand I spray a mist of water all over the surface of the canvas to wet it, then with my right hand I squeeze random squiggles of Cobalt Blue and Raw Umber Liquitex Acrylic. These are both compatible with the existing acrylic ground, and subsequent oil paint will adhere to it safely. If this were oil-primed canvas, I would have to use these colors from my oil paint supply, since acrylic cannot be painted over oil and expected to last long, if at all. Using acrylic saves waiting time. Without even taking the time to cap my acrylic tubes, I begin brushing frantically to gain an abstract thin coat of acrylic all over the surface. I do this with a moist, cheap, 1.5" house painting brush (the $1.25 kind from the warehouse hardware store whose name rhymes with Foam Depot). The already moist bristles will help the paint flow, and not grab hold of the hairs of the brush, instead. Quickly, I grab a paper towel and start dabbing and wiping, patting and dragging. The purpose here it to gain a "natural abstract" effect, with dissimilar textures throughout, while lightening the value of this tone so that it is not too dark. This texture can add interest to areas of transparency, but will mostly be covered by the final painting. It needs to be light enough to draw on with charcoal... which is my next step. A careful drawing is done with a 4B General Charcoal Pencil. The softer charcoal pencils draw darker with a lighter touch, and are easier to erase with a kneaded eraser. In the case of this painting I erased my first completed drawing after "sleeping on it" for a night. No, I did not sleep on my painting — I did the drawing in the evening and purposely did not start the painting that night, for two important reasons: 1) I wanted to give myself a mental and visual break so that my fresh eye in the morning would warn me of any corrections that needed to be made, and 2) I wanted to have a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. Before I retired for the night, I took one more look at the drawing and decided the figure was just a little too big for the composition, and having learned to trust my instincts, went to bed knowing that in the morning I would erase the whole thing and redraw it. I went to bed a little frustrated. The next day I began the drawing all over again, and when satisfied that I have a good road map for beginning my painting, I start applying the darkest of the darks, wherever they fall, and begin building a shadow pattern, constantly working wet into wet. For the curious, I have created an audio-free, short movie of the progress thus far. It's just a few aligned still-shots cross-dissolving. Note that none of it is in a finished state, even though I appear to move from section to section somewhat thoroughly. (Quicktime 7.0 or higher required. Some browsers may force you to download the entire movie before playing. The file is 2.7MB, and you may have to right-click [PC] or option-click [Mac] to properly Save the file). The entire painting, so far, can be seen here.

Still Painting Everyday...

If you have noticed a "slowing" in my postings, it is because my time is almost completely eaten up by a 32" x 40" commissioned oil portrait that will take the bulk of the rest of this week to complete. I am really enjoying this larger piece after a year of postcard-sized paintings. I wasn't sure I would. At the risk of sounding unsure of myself, to the contrary I knew it was just going to take some mental gearing-up, and didn't want that process to take too very long.

Frankly, the larger size kind of shocked me when I set it on the easel and got the drawing done. Doing mostly small works over the year, I had forgotten what such a large canvas 'felt' like staring me in the face... so much so that, in addition to the 8" x 10" sketch I did earlier, I decided to do a same-size practice (shown above) just to whip my brushes into shape and let them know we're going to be covering a lot more canvas-real-estate over the next few weeks, and dragging lot more paint here and there.

Fortunately they were listening, and caught on quickly.

Actually, the final painting, underway, is larger than the sample shown above. That canvas, shown with the quick charcoal sketch on it, and then rapidly painted, is on some cheaper canvas stock I had laying around, stretched on a smaller frame than the final, but the head and hands — my area of concentration — are same-size themselves. The scribbling off to the lower right was going to be a study of the lower hand, with the canvas rotated to 90-degrees CW... but I decided, rather absentmindedly, to just continue painting freehand down to the bottom instead of rotating to my earlier drawing.

What did I learn? Hands are harder than faces, for me. That hand area was a total mess for at least three hours, including an hour's work I just wiped right off. I guess the best part of being an old, seasoned painter is that you just know you'll get it eventually, so 'just hang in there.'

I'll be posting "segments" as I approach finish.

More Please

by David R. Darrow 6" x 9" (15.2cm x 22.9cm)
Oil on Panel SOLD Collection of Jeanne Piorkowski
Newton, NJ – USA

About This Painting

An entire bouquet of these deep magenta tulips was sitting on the kitchen counter overnight, and uncharacteristically for us, the large wooden blinds had not yet been opened, though already 8:30am.

This one tulip had stretched out from the bunch and nestled itself comfortably near the opening between the horizontal slats, comfortable enough, or nourished enough, from the morning light sneaking in that it had begun to unfold while the rest of the bouquet huddled together in the shadows, petals tightly wound in from the evening before, sleeping in.

This little optimist was already up and ready for the day, drinking in the reflected light but hoping for more.  ◙

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Uncorking A Moment

by David R. Darrow 10" x 7" (25.4cm x 17.8cm)
Oil on Panel SOLD Collection of John Reynolds
Noblesville, IN – USA

About This Painting

Have you ever taken a nice bottle of wine to someone's home, or along for a nice, beach-side picnic — only to discover when you arrive at your destination that you have forgotten the corkscrew?

We have.

It's the kind of event that makes you think that the most important thing about a nice wine isn't the year it was bottled, the variety, the shape of the glass or even the taste. None of those are as important as a corkscrew.

I painted this corkscrew portrait of one of our favorites — the red one (we have many, since every time we forget one we have to buy another). It's a work of art itself... sleek lines, shiny chrome, rich red finish.

To the moment!  ◙

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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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Art of the Kiss

by David R. Darrow 8" x 8" (20.3cm x 20.3cm)
Oil on Belgian Linen Panel SOLD Collection of Bruce and Karen May
Vista, CA – USA

About This Painting

These little gems are an American icon. They are as ubiquitous in February as naked baby archer-angels.

As I set this up to paint, I really just got lost in any setting. It would have been even harder with an all silver-wrapped Kiss. They have only recently started showing up dressed in red.

So I just decided to pose it for a simple Vanity Portrait.

A good Kiss is art!

Don't you love the mystery on its tag? A "Kiss For..." ...whom?

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1 Year Paintiversary

Wow. That went quickly. It was one year ago today I posted my first Everyday Paintings post. I did it with the purpose of "hanging myself out there" before my friends and enemies as a way of intimidating myself into painting every day. From the outset, I thought I might just paint 5 days a week. I like to leave weekends flexible, and Sundays a traditional day of rest. That's not a religious decision, but I figure if God takes a day off once a week, I should, too. In the end — which, technically, was yesterday — I did 70 new paintings and sold 68 of them, plus several others... older paintings from my inventory. I do not know what this year holds. There is as much of real life to mix in with my goals as there ever has been, and frankly that stuff really gets in the way. Thanks for the growing readership. When I started, I think it was only my mom reading — and now it's doubled. Yes, I have two moms. Seriously, I have made quite a few new artist friends and collector friends, and the experience has been extremely helpful in my further understanding of brushes, and paint and how to push it into the right places on a canvas so that it looks kinda cool. I gotta tip my hat once more to the only person I knew of in the world, one year ago, who was doing a painting every day. Thanks, to Mr. Duane Keiser. Update Apparently something in the above suggests I will not be painting anymore. To that, I say "Rumors of the demise of Everyday Paintings are greatly exaggerated."

Sweet Heart

by David R. Darrow 8" x 8" (20.3cm x 20.3cm)
Oil on Belgian Linen Panel SOLD Collection of Patricia Harris
Ragley, LA – USA

About This Painting

If ever there was a time that a painting took discipline to complete...

As I finished each piece of chocolate in my painting, I had to resist finishing it in real life. With some degree of pride I can tell you that all the chocolates are still in the box. They all survived the tempting ordeal.

What is it with gals and chocolate? A box of chocolates as a gift can really go south on a guy. It's a risky one. You're basically giving her a gift that she can enjoy in secret and feel very guilty about the more she enjoys it.

Well, here's an alternative... an original oil painting of chocolates!

It has distinct advantages:

• It will last longer... likely for generations.
• It's not fattening (in fact, it's not edible).
• It will not melt, even over the fireplace.
• You can enjoy it with all your friends, openly.
• You can have it well in advance of Valentine's Day.
  Nothing last minute about it

The perfect heartful of chocolates!

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The Luthier

by David R. Darrow 7" x 5" (17.8cm x 12.7cm)
Oil on Linen Panel In A Private Collection
El Cajon, CA – USA

About This Painting

This is a quick portrait of a luthier I admire. One of the most innovative, finest luthiers in the world.

Back in the 70s and 80s, word among acoustic guitar players was that the guitar to have was a C.F. Martin & Company D35, which, as they aged, reportedly just got better — and more expensive.

I believed that wholeheartedly until the evening a friend let me play one of this man's guitars. That night I dreamed I would one day own a Taylor Guitar.

Bob Taylor was apprehensive going into manufacturing, for what he had learned to do by hand, he wasn't convinced could be coded in to machines... his reluctance to approach mass production on guitars led to innovations in the guitar industry, development of high-precision machines and fundamental changes in guitar design — the first of their kind in over 100 years. His revolutionary neck-design is patented.

In 1974 Bob and two friends bought the company they worked for, a guitar company in Lemon Grove, CA. The following year, they had to let most of the remaining employees go, since they were out of capital. The company, renamed Taylor Guitars, made 37 guitars that year.

Needless to say, they made it through, and now turn out over 40,000 exceptional quality guitars a year, with their 350+ employees.

All of this came out of a love for quality guitars and the music they make.

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