Darrell Anderson

In the upcoming months we wish to profile some of the well-known artists who Mary Balcomb knew as good friends, such as Del Gish, Darrell Anderson, Lois MacFarland, and William Reese, most of which were connected to Sergei Bongart in some way.

Today we feature Darrell Anderson, of Bainbridge Island, Washington. A frequent visitor to Mary’s home, the above painting of his hung in her bedroom for years, up to the day she died:

Darrell’s blog is well-worth looking at. He is an accomplished artist who loves to educate as well. He leads workshops in Maine and Italy each year. His blog is full of ideas and step-by-step presentations of how he works out different problems.

Above: “Lost in the Vine Maple Forest” (8″x16″) was a challenge because the sun kept moving, so he had to capture the scene quickly, and parts of it were done from memory.

“Red Notes” (34″x34″) Darrell writes: “On the last day of my painting classes we do a critique at the end of the day.  Coincidentally, this old painting floated to the studio surface the week before.  It was done about ten years ago… maybe more…. and I felt it lacked something back then, and it hadn’t improved itself in all those years. So, to get people into the spirit of looking critically at their work, I propped it up on an easel and asked the group what could be done to improve it.  At first they seemed to be hesitant but as one person after another offered a suggestion the bus got rolling.  We talked each of the suggestions over, and what you see is the end result.”

Plein Air “Bloedel Afternoon 3″
16×20″

Darrell is also featured in our popular arts journal, TheScreamOnline (named after Munch’s famous painting). Darrell’s sketchbook art, as well as that of Mary Balcomb, Don Colley, and Pat Perry, are also featured.

Please visit Darrell’s blog. He is a wonderful artist, and they don’t come any nicer!