My interest in
drawing and painting people started in my childhood when I first began looking
at everything. It all just seemed natural to be interested in anything
alive from the fat flabby parts of my dogs face, a boxer and staring at those
long, elegant hands of my father while he reads the newspaper to examining my
grandfather's deeply wrinkled face with that long winding nose and his ever
elongated ears until he called me to his bed to say goodbye at 96 years old.
When I was
in art school I read that the masters' from the renaissance period could draw
the human figure anatomically correct in any position out of their head without
any visual reference and right there in the library I told myself "OK,
that's want I'm going to be able to do." Well, it happened, after
three separate studies of human anatomy, from head to toe and two years of full
time life drawing I could sit down to a blank piece of paper and begin the
construction lines of the figure in any position then gradually draw every
visual bone and muscle shape in correct proportion. This later served me
well from animating human form for film to drawing from memory to
crank out hundreds of storyboards for film and TV commercials.
Then there is
'painting' people that can be done to depict every detail or leaving
a shorthand version and allowing the viewer to fill in the parts left out....
or something in between where the focal points are detailed the rest is briefly
and quickly narrated with flowing, rhythmic brush strokes.
Rembrandt said, "I'm not interested in learning all
the anatomical rules, it can take too much away from the human expression
that I'm striving for." I partially agree, know what to leave
out and focus with passion. David Flett Biography
David has been working full time in almost every category of commercial
art, involving illustration, murals, film animation
and finally, fine art painting with
oils.
After 2 years of film animation at a community college he started
as an animator with Sesame Street shorts, TV commercials and the
Flintstones, then 3 years on a feature film that had a large budget, but lost it's direction and flopped at
the box office.
Turning 25 years old, David returned to school for 2 years to study
classical fine art. Drawing and (painting) every day, including two intensive
study periods of human anatomy.
He later drifted into commercial art, developing various
illustration techniques and cranking out storyboards for television commercials
and film scripts. These are a perfect compliment to his animation background and it was a fun and fulfilling mental, visual exercise. David also got into
painting murals on canvas and exteriors, using airbrush and spray
guns.
Having had experience (and teaching classes at two local
art schools) with watercolors, acrylic
paint and airbrush David had
dabbled, but never become thoroughly intimate with the various technical
procedures of oil painting and he was beginning to put paintings into art galleries in Toronto.
In 1995 David took a concentrated study of a condensed version of a 3
year, classical painting course from John Micheal Angel, who learned his craft
and classical training from Pietro
Annigoni, master painter from
Italy, having been chosen to paint the young Queen Elizabeth in 1953. Angel directs and runs Angel Academy of Art in Florence, Italy,
promoting the lost lessens of the old painting masters of Europe.
David now paints mostly "plien air" painting, studio finished
works and portraits.
David was born and raised in Toronto, Canada and currently lives in
Brigantine, NJ.