UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

The above is not a photograph! It’s a painting by Dru Blair, probably the world’s best photorealistic artist. It was completed in February 2005 in “around 65-75 hours.”

Detail of nose/mouth area:

In his own words:

Subtle nuances created by an xacto knife, an eraser, and some colored pencil can build convincing skin texture. The etcetera technique also helps the believability of the skin and hair texture. Fine hair is created using my shield-reveal technique, and my split frisket technique. Application via airbrush constitutes about 99% of the image.

The model is Tica, of whom he created a reference by taking a digital photograph of her in his studio, then printed it.

On photorealism, he said:

As a style, Photorealism has a few detractors, who often dismiss it as pointless, or non-art. They fail to realize that many photorealistic paintings are not mere copies of photographs, but interpretations of reality based on the artist’s vision. The act of merely copying a photograph has no artistic merit except to hone one’s artistic skills… This painting of Tica is not just a copy of a photograph, but is a product of many artistic decisions, whereas I deviated from the reference photo for more aesthetic appeal… Photorealism is by far, the most difficult artistic style to master.

Elements of photorealism are proportion, color fidelity, scale, perspective, edge transition, subtlety, non-contrivance (chaos), object relationship, light and shadow, reflection, radiosity, transparency, texture, atmosphere, depth of field, weathering (wear and tear), flaws, detail, and it all has to make visual sense.

If any of these elements are amiss, the painting will fail as a photorealistic image. In truth, these elements are simply descriptions of the visual experience of reality. If an artist ever wanted to put his or her artistic skills to the test, there is no greater master than reality.

A little bit about Dru Blair:

During his medical undergraduate studies, he discovered his artistic gift. In 1988 he won the National Airbrush Excellence Award. The next year he produced his first aviation painting, “Power” which is still the number one selling aviation print in the world.

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