Arianne

[Garth Herrick]

David,

I have to agree with Alex and Enzie that you have always been an unusually fabulous and insightful artist, and that you have come into full fruition of yout talents now. Both Ariannes are exemplary, but your new one is particularly stunning in her pose (despite your frustrations with the paper)! Kudos and congratuations on this success!

Garth

[Tom Edgerton]

David--

These are great...I especially appreciate the attitude of perfect restraint in your use of the white accents.

Great work!

[Linda Brandon]

These are beautifully handled, David I especially like the carefully tousled hair in the most recent version, it's so sensitively rendered.

[David Draime]

Thank you all so much!

After doing this one I've been musing on...beauty - feminine beauty in particular. I've been thinking that there is a generally accepted notion of beauty that is cultural, contemporary - particular to a certain time or place. But as an artist, I'm finding that there is another kind of beauty - a beauty that is timeless, classical (and the question here is: is this a case of us artists being influenced by what went before, the paintings of bygone eras depicting what was then fashionable beauty? - or is there a "timeless" element that past artists were revealing?) I think most people would say Arianne is an exceptionally beautiful young lady - she could be a successful model if she wanted to - and yet, when I was doing her portrait, I wasn't so inspired in the process of rendering her face. Conversely, there have been other women/girls I have drawn/painted who, though they would probably not be considered a great beauty by many, they have got something...I'm thinking of Diana - in real life, I'm sure many would say she's attractive, but not gorgeous - yet I was so inspired in doing her portrait ....was it a different kind of beauty, or a hidden beauty somehow...? I don't know...

Does any of this make sense? Do you experience this?

David

[Jean Kelly]

Your work is always a pleasure to see, David. I can understand the tedious part, but again, you have pulled off a very engaging portrait of a beautiful young woman.

Jean

[Heidi Maiers]

These are divine David! I especially like the first one.
I'm always a bit nervous when doing beautiful people - I always have that feeling that I won't be able to do them justice. You seem to have no problem with that!

[David Draime]

Jean, thank you. I have been mulling lately on the tedium I sometimes experience in doing these pieces, namely...if a drawing or painting is tedious in its creation - does it follow that, for the viewer, it is somehow tedious to look at? It may not be true in every case, but there may be some truth there...I wonder how often Sargent got bogged down in an area of a painting he found "tedious"...

Heidi, thanks! Yeah, my concerns with doing obviously beautiful - or glamorous looking -subjects aren't so much about doing them justice, but are rather all about ending up with the piece looking like an illustration from some fashion magazine. To raise it to the level of "art"....there are different kinds of beauty (less obvious) that I am far more comfortable with.

[Grethe Angen]

Hello David, apart from your subject, the beauty lies in the fact that this is charcoal on paper. It takes time to reach this level of controlling the the black dust. Beautiful!