Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Jen

Jen by David R. Darrow 8" x 16" (20.3cm x 40.6cm) Oil on Stretched Canvas SOLD Collection of Renée Richardson Washington, DC – USA

About This Painting

I try to make a habit of painting strangers. In fact, my business card which bears a sample of my oil portraiture makes reference to my interest in strangers with my tag line "Beautiful Strangers: Oil Portraits of Friends I Don't Know."

Now, usually I reserve my canvas manipulations for the likenesses of people I have met and asked to paint. But the other day I painted a total stranger as an alla prima painting demonstration for the viewers of my almost-daily painting show Dave The Painting Guy (Google It).

1 of the 4 video clips of this painting being created can be found at: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/403211 

"Jen," as I have since discovered her name to be, left a comment on one of my painting photos on Flickr.com, and so I jumped over to her collection to look at her paintings. Seeing only thumbnails there, I thought that one of the shots was a wonderful painting so I clicked the thumbnail to look at it more closely only to discover that it was actually an out of focus cell-phone picture she had shot.

So, I wrote to her and asked if I could do a painting... an artistic interpretation of that shot. She gave me permission, and the rest is history.

It was a fun painting to do... the angle of the head, the elegant lines of her neck, her curly hair. Beautiful women make for beautiful paintings.  ◙


An Archival, Fine-Art Giclée of this print is available: e-mail me for details. To subscribe to my free "Art In Your InBox" Newsletter, just click here.

4 comments:

Manuela Valenti said...

I love this one David! so fresh and spontaneous, and I love the loose brushwork.

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful painting. Sensual and playful at the same time. Bravo.

Anonymous said...

How right you are! Beautiful women really do make beautiful paintings! But the wanderful thing about painting portraits is that we artist FIND their beauty even if it is not obvious. You've done an excellent job, it's amazing the kind of detail and movement that you can get from a fuzzy cell phone photo!Impressive

Alina said...

wonderful!! i loved it! i myself am an artist well just a beginner and i would appreciate if you would have any advices or comments on my paintings on http://alina-justsomestuff.blogspot.com
THANKS!! :D