There is no way that is just a Painting

The image above is not a photo. 

It is a painting done by an artist with no formal training, beginning his art career only a mere five years ago.

As I did for my very first baby blog post is highlight one of the absolutely incredible artists that I happen to engage with over the medium of Instagram. Darren Reid is a British photorealism painter that deals primarily in landscape paintings and they are absolutely stunning. 

 His Instagram  is used not so much for selling various works but for both updates and #WIP (work in progress) posts. The post above explores the sketches used to base one of his later paintings as well as the extreme detail used in works that are still very much in progress. 

"The thing that has always struck me with realist paintings is that there is always something very immediate about them," he says. "You go to a gallery and you don't need any learning to appreciate one. There's an immediate response. I think, possibly, my subject matter is because I haven't had an [art] education, so a starting point for every painting I make is, 'would I hang it on my wall'?"

As an art viewer with little training in art education, I know I would hang it on my wall.