Artists - Part 10

Douglas Simonson

Douglas Simonson is a Hawaiian artist and photographer whose work frequently features nude males.  You saw two of his photos of surfer Kaimana in yesterday's post.

Here's another photo of Kaimana, who seems to be one of Simonson's favorite Hawaiian models.

This photo of Kaimana was made into a painting.

Here's the painting, done in a somewhat Impressionist style, called Hawaiian Nude with Surfboard.

Other paintings are more stylized, like Blue Chair.  This was done in Mexico, where Simonson has also worked, as well as in Brazil.

Here's a video from his website https://douglassimonson.com showing his process of creating a painting from a photograph.  His website contains hundreds of his photos, drawings, and paintings, but you have to register (free) to see the nude ones.  I edited out about half of the video, but you'll still get the idea.  He made a drawing from the photo, and then painted in the drawing, looking like someone doing "paint by numbers".  (To his credit, he does do shading and blending, so it's not just paint by numbers.)

Is Simonson a great artist?  No, in my opinion.  He's a guy who has found a way to make a living from selling his photos and paintings on his website, while doing what he loves.  And that's not bad.