Digital Portrait
Fun UNFINISHED digital painting project. This was NOT a paint-over.
So.... here's an interesting story: This is how I learned to draw people.
When I was a young, impressionable teen trying to figure out what I wanted to be in this big, crazy world, I received a greeting card with an airbrush illustration of Marilyn Monroe. I still remember turning it over and learning that it was painted by Dave Willardson for a company called Paper Moon Graphics. It was one of those rare moments that you look back upon many years later and know that it changed you and had great effect in so many beautiful ways.
I practiced drawing Marilyn Monroe's face over and over again—it was so perfect and if you screwed it up even just a little bit—you could see it. A perfect face must be drawn perfectly.
This image—that Paper Moon card—changed my life. I knew I wanted to be an airbrush illustrator like Dave Willardson and work at Paper Moon Graphics.
When I was in my mid-twenties, I ended up working at Paper Moon Graphics and that Marilyn Monroe original hung in the studio. Not sure whose extra hands are wrapped around my head in the above photo, but I’ll always look fondly upon this great 80’s time capsule.
