Arianne

[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.

[Michele Rushworth]

Garth hit the nail on the head when describing you:

an unusually fabulous and insightful artist

These are both terrific.

As to the ideal of feminine beauty, sometimes it truly is in the eye of the beholder.

[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!

[Jean Kelly]

I've also been fighting with the tedious nature of some of my art. In your case the tendrils of hair look to be effortless, and her skin texture is flawless, the fabric is beautifully draped. I believe that most viewers will simply be stunned by the perfection, like Michaelangelo's "David". But, for the artist it may be a different story. At times I want to have a huge canvas next to me so I can just throw paint on, and paint with my whole body! (No, not like Farrah Fawcet, who rolled around on the canvas nude).

I wonder if Sargent ever wrote about his struggles also, and this may be an interesting topic for another thread.

Jean