About

This blog is primarily about visual observation. However, observation does not necessarily preclude knowledge, in fact it is often quite the opposite. And so it is with this blog and website: observations and knowledge, working in concert.

The outsider might believe that all realist, representational artists share the same goals and procedures. The reality is often far from it and historically there have always been many sides and theories of art. The heat of the disagreements may change with the times, as may the flavors of the month, but I think that the differences are simply one of the byproducts of creativity. That said, add teaching to the mix and each particular preference becomes holy writ. One goal for this blog is to highlight and explain many of these differences. Part of this is to explain what I personally do and think about art. Hopefully I can do that in a way which does not seem to negate the approaches I do not take. Another part is to give the student/reader information from all sides of the story so that they may intelligently decide for themselves.

• Home is the main landing page and blog.
• The About page, this is where you currently are.
• The Gallery page displays a selection of my paintings.
• The Reviews page is where I do reviews, mostly of art books.
• Define is an ever growing and in depth look at art terms and how their definitions are fluid.
• Focus is where I take a close look at specific drawings, paintings and sculptures from an artist’s point of view.
• Visual Gospel page, is a collection of posts highlighting Christian art. Though they have many similarities, this category is not to be confused with one of my other websites, The Visual Gospel.
• Finally, there’s the Photos page, which is a random selection of my favorite photographs.

About Me
My name is Darren R. Rousar and I am an oil painter. I also teach, write and live a good and happy life in Minnesota with my wonderful wife Kathleen (who is also an artist). I paint the occasional portrait commission and greatly enjoy landscape painting but I am primarily interested in religious art. Becoming a born-again Christian at the age of twelve essentially focused me into this field and it is something which I consider to be the basis of my life’s work.

My artistic training began in earnest when I was in my mid-teens thanks to my high school art teacher, Ginto Naujokas. Seeing that I had learned all he had to offer caused him to seek out additional options for me and the result was a scholarship for a class at a local art center. The choice of class was up to me and since I wanted to paint Biblical scenes I figured that Artistic Anatomy would be the perfect class. The teacher of the class was Annette LeSueur, a graduate of Atelier Lack. After studying with her for a year or so she gave me an introduction to Richard Lack himself. Mr. Lack accepted me as a part-time private student and I spent my afternoons for two years down at his school, Atelier Lack, learning to see under him and his assistants.

I graduated from high school in 1983 and temporarily left the fine arts. I spent the following year learning commercial art at a local technical college. Over the years I have benefited from that education but after a year it was clear that I was far more interested in being an oil painter. So I enrolled in Annette LeSueur’s atelier (which was variously called the Hathaway School of Classical Art and later, Atelier LeSueur). I spent four years there; along with night classes back at Atelier Lack, and maintain that Mr. Lack, Annette and some of her teachers taught me how to draw and to really see.

In 1988 I went to Europe for the first time and I spent three months touring most if its great museums. The art I was seeing there had a profound affect on me. Ultimately I decided to move to Florence and I was accepted into Studio Cecil-Graves. I spent nine months painting portraits and the figure under Charles and Dan, after which I moved to London to copy in the National Gallery.

Back in the States, I spent the early 90’s in Florida painting a commission of an eight by ten foot scene of the Nativity. This project was meant to include seven paintings of similar size, all depicting scenes from the life of Christ. Alas, the S&L crisis severely impacted the church’s funding for the project and it was cancelled so I moved back to Minnesota.

Between 1993 and 1995 I completed various portrait commissions and taught at the Minnesota River School of Fine Arts. Then, in the spring of 1995, I moved to Jerusalem in order to paint landscape studies. Six months later, after leading an art tour through Italy, I ended up as the assistant director of Charles Cecil Studios in Florence. This position lasted for almost two years and I learned more about painting during that time than I had in the previous fifteen.

By 1997 I had once again moved back to Minnesota. Eventually I became the vice president of the Minnesota River School of Fine Arts, a position that lasted until 2005. During my time there I taught numerous students and my wife and I led many art-based trips to Europe. Sadly, the school is now closed.

In 2007 I wrote, Cast Drawing Using the Sight-Size Approach, the first book of its kind to fully explain Sight-Size drawing and shortly thereafter produced a companion DVD, Sight-Size and the Art of Seeing. Then, in 2009 I wrote a follow-up book called, Cast Painting Using the Sight-Size Approach. My wife and I also own a small publishing house, Velatura Press, and we have republished two books: Birge Harrison’s Landscape Painting and E. G. Lutz’s Drawing Made Easy.

When not painting in my home studio I am usually teaching at Providence Academy or writing. I primarily sell my paintings to private collectors and no longer actively seek gallery representation.

I do work on commission however.