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.  ◙

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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.

Megan

by David R. Darrow 11" x 14" (27.9cm x 35.6cm)
Oil on Stretched Canvas
SOLD Collection of Jose Arce
Jacksonville, IL – USA

About This Painting

Last June, I was very excited about an article that came out about me and my portrait painting, and was celebrating at my favorite custom-brew house, Pizza Port in Carlsbad, CA, handing out copies of the the San Diego Reader which contained the article about me, trying, to no avail, to get someone to think I was a big deal and buy me a beer.

A gorgeous, young woman walked by with lovely eyes and beautiful curls in her long, deep-red hair, and so I whipped out my business card which has my website on it, and asked her if I might paint her.

The next day she called, and she and her boyfriend Mike came over for a quick photo sitting for an eventual painting. Last November, I held a painting workshop for artists in Southern California, and used a large photo of Megan from that shoot to demonstrate my painting methods, concentrating on Values and Shapes, and how to quickly get a good likeness.

I only painted for 45 - 60 minutes, and did not finish the painting at that workshop.

Fast Forward

A few weeks ago, I began broadcasting a painting show on the Internet from my studio. It's a free-to-anyone show called "Dave the Painting Guy" (Google it). As one of my many demonstrations to date, I decided to complete this portrait of Megan. The entire process (except for the first hour) was recorded and saved for viewing, with segment 1 found here: www.ustream.tv/

On that internet show, people can log in and "chat" via a text window, and I can answer questions via video and audio. It's a very casual show, with lots of laughs, and honest, straight-forward answers to viewers' questions. You can also log in there and watch this "episode" and others to watch this painting reach completion.   ◙

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