Dave's 2nd Online Portrait Workshop

I will be holding my second online portrait painting workshop, May 3o and 31, 2009 (the first one, May 23 and 24th filled up fast) from 8:30am each day, Pacific Time. That's 12-hours total.

The second workshop will be the same as the first, except better most likely, since I will be learning from the first.

The online workshop will be limited to 16 people due to time constraints related to regular reviews of each participant's work. Participants will view the instructors work via the "over his shoulder cam" and work on the same painting, using the same reference (shown at right), with step-by-step instruction from beginning to end, along with helpful assessments along the way to keep each participant on track.

There are still a few spots left.

Click here for detailed information on David R. Darrow's GoFigure Online Workshop

Why Did I Get Booted from the Chatroom?

Lately, I have received e-mails from people asking why they got booted from the chatroom during a Dave The Painting Guy Paintcast™. Since there are possibly hurt feelings, I wanted to address it here so that I can direct people to this explanation of the possibilities. Many people believe they are excluded from the chat unfairly, and I need to deal with some presumptions that may exist.

First of all, know that it was probably not me that "axed you." I am usually too busy painting or operating the video camera to busy myself with chatroom tasks. Besides, I have long patience for most things, most questions and most personalities. However, I have assigned several trusted "moderators" to keep watch on the room so that I can paint, and the chatroom stays civil (since I do not watch the chatroom much).

Most of my moderators have been viewers of my show for a very long time, and are, as best I can tell, aligned with me in a desire to keep the chatroom a warm, family-friendly community of artists of other interested parties. They are individuals who have demonstrated a sense of "ownership" in the success of my show and the environment it provides to the public. I am delighted that they feel that it is "their party" and they will protect it as they deem necessary.

With varying personalities comes varying levels of tolerance for irritations, and I know, from what I have read on the chat that, with regard to some anonymous personalities that wander through, some of my moderators "have their finger on the button, ready to nuke an unruly visitor." While I never want to intentionally hurt someone's feelings, I stand by and take responsibility for the choices of my moderators, because I know they have my best interest and that of the Dave the Painting Guy Paintcast™ Community at heart.

At my request, they are sensitive to several chatroom behaviors which — although perhaps acceptable in many chatrooms where anonymity and one-upsmanship seem to prevail over social skills — are behaviors or manners which I strongly wish to keep out of my chatroom, including but not limited to:

• profanity
• sexual innuendo
• derisive comments
• publishing links without permission in the chat
• changing nicknames in unhelpful ways
• excessive off-topic or attention-getting comments
• or obvious "showboating" — typically the behavior of the less mature visitors

On occasion I have had people leave the broadcast only because of the behavior of others in the chatroom, and, frankly, I don't like that.

I walk a fine line with my show. My mind thinks of things that are funny to me, and I say them, albeit with — believe it or not — many filters running at the same time. Besides whatever benefit there is to watching a guy paint and talk about it, the humorous element is what, I believe, makes the show entertaining to the people who show up so often — many of which never log in or participate in the chatroom. I have reason to believe that my banter and playfulness on the show encourage others to "let their hair down" and join in, injecting their own humor into the environment. Some of these people, from time to time, may push it too far, presumably, in an effort to get a more satisfying response from others.

I don't know. Who am I to judge another's sense of humor?

I merely have standards for my chatroom, and am grateful for the volunteers that watch over it, in spite of the fact that from time to time mistakes are made.

That having been said, please consider that what may appear to be sudden exclusion from the chatroom may, in fact, be the result of me or my moderators issuing a chatroom command that initiates an automatic, more restrictive level of chatroom moderation to which even my own mother fell victim on the evening of April 1st.

In its simplest form: when moderation is turned ON, no one is allowed to participate in the chatroom unless they have logged in with an official ustream.tv username. This effectively blocks everyone from the chat that does not have and use a uStream.tv account, though they can still see the text of the chatroom. Moderation ON also excludes people who drop in and change their name from, say, ustreamer-37865 to jonny-artist, since they have not officially logged in.

If you suddenly find yourself blocked from chat, you have either failed to log in officially and I have turned on moderation, or you have been booted by one of my moderators, or me for one or more of the behaviors listed above.

Corpsman Meeks In Studio Again Tonight

 

Kyle Meeks in studio for live portrait, last night.

I had an unexpectedly great time painting my friend Kyle last night, formally Corpsman Kyle Brock Meeks, U.S. Navy; Senior Line Corpsman for Alpha 3rd Platoon, 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division. 

Despite some technical challenges, and arranging the studio, cameras and computer monitor so Kyle could participate in the chat, the painting session was one of my all-time favorites.

I have never painted someone who, though present to pose, was also actively communicating. Of course, I asked him to, and I accepted the challenge of painting him while he was sharing so many fascinating stories of his military tour. (Tonight, however, I am going to have him pose with his mouth closed while I finish his mouth, which, subsequently to the frame shown above, I wiped off the canvas.)

Technical difficulties at the uStream.tv end of this broadcast caused a Broadcast FAIL and my show abruptly ended mid-sentence as Kyle was laying out a great story of the time spent alone in a Jordanian hospital while waiting for his 'boy' (an injured Marine in his care) was attended to. I attempted for some time to re-connect, but it was impossible for unknown reasons. I am so sorry!

The painting will continue tonight with Kyle in-studio one more time, tonight, starting at 5pm, Pacific time.

Click here to go to the show URL at the proper time.

Emily

As promised, below is a sharper photo of the painting of Emily, created last week for my wife's birthday. (if you want to see it a bit larger, click the image)

Live Pose on Dave the Painting Guy, tonight

Kyle Meeks, left, with his father Brock days before Kyle's deployment in Nov. 2008

Tonight, starting at 5pm until 8pm or so, Pacific Time (GMT -8) I will have a friend in studio sitting for a portrait. I expect the painting will carry into tomorrow night's show, same time, and so have scheduled him to pose again. Click here, at 5pm, to go to the show URL.

My subject (the sitter) is Corpsman Kyle Brock Meeks, U.S. Navy. He's the Senior Line Corpsman for Alpha 3rd Platoon, 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division. He just returned recently from a tour to Afghanistan, if I am not mistaken (details to be corrected during broadcast, I am sure).

Kyle is my friend Brock's second youngest son of 4. I have known Kyle since the day he was born, though due to the way life goes, until last Fall I had not seen him in 15 years or so. I found out he was stationed at the nearby military base, Camp Pendleton, CA and invited him out for a beer, catching up and a couple of prayers before he headed off on a tour of duty -- his first tour, but less than a year before he'd completed his contract with the military.

Teresa and I have met many Marines decompressing over a cold beer at our favorite pizza and ale hangout in Carlsbad, CA, and, despite the expected "we're the best branch of the US Military, to a man they always admit that a Navy Corpsman (their walking Emergency Room on the battlefield) is the most respected man from another branch, maybe even more so than their own brothers. 'He's there to save your life.'

My live broadcast is always about oil painting, and I do work hard at keeping politics out of online discussions. It's a painting show. I do, however, want to honor the men and women who serve our country and the cause of Freedom, by singling out the one man I know personally who has gone to Hell and back, by painting his portrait. Plus we'll get to hang out together again.

The set-up will be multi-cam, special lighting, with a camera on my blank canvas and a close-to-my-vantage-point camera on him while I paint, discuss my thinking as I paint, all the while having a conversation with him about his tour. As he sees fit.

I know I have viewers on both sides of the war issue, and I respect your thoughts and feelings about it. I'd just like to ask in advance that the chatroom is used respectfully. The broadcast is about painting.

Facebook is too Grabby -- REVOLT!

Manuela Valenti brought this to my attention. Here is the full text of her comments:

Watch out!! Facebook changed their TOS!! Your pictures might appear on some merchandise somewhere!
As of February 2009 Facebook changed their TOS (Terms of Service), and by uploading anything to Facebook you are granting them FULL copyright over all your images, works, content, etc. According to their new TOS your images could end up on some t-shirts. I don't wanna see the images of my kids or my works for that matter printed somewhere, so as of TODAY I'm removing my images from my Facebook account until Facebook changes their policy back to acknowledge and respect our copyrights.

Scroll down to see section titled "Licenses" here, or read the text reproduced below:
You are solely responsible for the User Content that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses."

The full TOS is found here http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf

So what does this mean?

Handing over an exclusive license allows Facebook to protect themselves from lawsuits if, for example, a shot of my Facebook page and artwork or art photos ends up in a magazine ad. However, granting them an exclusive license -- which, according to the TOS, I am doing by signing up for Facebook -- means they can literally profit from my images directly, as if they are theirs, because in fact I am saying they are theirs.
Whether or not they are motivated to put my images on mugs or t-shirts for sale and Facebook profit is a separate issue, but the wording there in the TOS says that I am agreeing that it's okay for them to do so, and I will not be compensated nor will I have a case against them.
Essentially, they don't have to ask me, because I already gave them permission by posting images.

What can I do?

To me, the idea of NOT posting my images and videos makes Facebook nothing more than a fancy chat-room. I believe my images confirm my business as a serious and dedicated artist, and attract others in the same business as well as others interested in my business.
I will likely re-post images with a very obnoxious ©David R. Darrow - www.DarrowArt.com across the image at 50% transparency, so viewers can still get the gist of my art, but not use it anywhere without advertising for me. :-)
Downside: I will lose earlier comments friends have posted when I delete the un-marked images.
According to this article,

Facebook's terms of service (TOS) used to say that when you closed an account on their network, any rights they claimed to the original content you uploaded would expire. Not anymore.

By them adding the word "forever" and you agreeing to it you have already unprotected yourself. It's too late, because they changed the agreement after you agreed.

Alan C. Campbell Portrait

by David R. Darrow
11" x 14" (27.9cm x 35.6cm)
Oil on Canvas Panel
SOLD
Collection of Alan C. Campbell
San Diego, CA – USA

About This Painting

This portrait of my client Alan Campbell was started with Alan in the studio watching while I painted during the broadcast of Dave the Painting Guy.

I asked him if I could paint him because I like his face and I like him. He balked at the idea at first, but I talked him into posing for photographic reference for the painting, and then he became interested in obtaining the painting for his office.

So, what started out as a Fine Art piece for me to paint and sell, became a portrait commission. Either way, it was fun to paint.

Alan is a recognized, award-winning architect in San Diego. Visit the website of Alan C. Campbell.  ◙

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Bob Ross 2.0

You may prefer the less challenging English translation over the original text, but one writer in Greece has compared my show... well maybe just me... to Bob Ross.

Bob Ross [Wikipedia], the afro-adorned, soft-spoken wizard of 26-minute oil paintings got famous on PBS and left a void for art education when he passed away on July 4th, 1995.

He was famous for "happy trees" and "happy accidents" and those phrases live on in my show as viewers rattle them off in the chatroom.

I have absolutely no criticism of Bob Ross's work. He filled a void, brought a lot of people happiness and joy by helping them accomplish complete paintings. But perhaps the author sums it up best:

[Dave] sure is not Bob Ross but is a very good effort.

UPDATE:

The author of the article just mailed me an accurate translation:

Many of you have seen Bob Ross, the guy with the strange hair at ET3 (a greek tv channel) that paints in a couple of minutes things that most of us adore (although many "artists" think that they are just "knock offs"). Maybe you are one of those who tried to make their first steps in painting, because of the easiness that Bob Ross presents us. The shows we are watching are already counting 15 years and Bob Ross is not alive.

If you are wondering how a similar artist would be in the WEB 2.0 era, I think that David Darrow is an answer. Daily lessons and live streaming, twitter updates and of course blog, website etc, the Painting Guy does a very nice opening of the art to the public. Maybe he is not Bob Ross but this is a very good work.

If he is streaming right now you can watch him below either way visit his ustream channel.