David Fairrington Turns Amateur Artists into Pros at Loma Linda Senior Center

Anyone can be an artist, even if you think you can’t. That’s what renowned artist David Fairrington says, and he’s built a career out of it. “You can literally paint anything, because everything is broken down into shapes and values,” Fairrington said. “If you know your shapes and values, you can draw anything, and it’s almost instantaneous. You can be a success overnight.” His students begin with a simple drawing exercise that Fairrington then uses as a foundation for the rest of the courses. Fairrington said, “If you continue with the classes, I will eventually say, ‘Do you remember when you did this? Because that applies to what you’re doing now.’” Fairrington calls the Loma Linda Senior Center his studio every week, teaching oil and acrylic painting classes for students ranging in skill from beginning to advanced every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., at $20 a class. Fairrington also teaches in Beaumont and Cherry Valley on Tuesdays, at the Desert Art Center in Palm Springs on Thursdays, and at Vision Quest in Yucaipa on Fridays and Saturdays. In November, he’ll begin teaching in Palm Desert on Mondays. “My students are great,” Fairrington said. “I couldn’t ask for a better bunch of people. They keep everything light and fun and we all have a great time. I get up in the morning and I really look forward to coming into class and seeing everybody. It’s like a little extended family.” He’s had students take classes with him for up to six years. One of his students, Joe Wheatley, has been taking classes from Fairrington for two years. Wheatley sees Fairrington twice a week, visiting Fairrington’s classes in Cherry Valley and in Loma Linda. “I retired and I took up golf, but I wasn’t any good at golf, so I figured, let’s try art,” Wheatley said, joking that when he began taking art classes he was drawing mere stick figures. “I’ve learned so much as far as shapes and values, composition and colors that I’m having much more fun at this than I did at golf.” Fairrington said the credit for Wheatley’s improvement is due mostly to Wheatley. “He works extremely hard. He listens and he makes application to what we talk about.” For Wheatley, Fairrington’s artistic and life experience is what makes learning from him worthwhile. Wheatley said, “I think (David’s) fantastic. When I found out that he was an Army artist in Vietnam, that just added to it.” Fairrington began drawing around third grade, he explained, and by college was making extra money by painting pencil portraits of his fellow students. He was drafted into the Army after graduating during the Vietnam War, and had heard about the Army’s Combat Artist Program. “It’s strictly volunteer and you send samples to the War Department,” Fairrington said. “If you got into the program, they’d send you to Vietnam…to do these sketches and photographs and paintings and record the war as we would see it. Our only rule was that we couldn’t be so abstract that no one would understand what the paintings were about. There was a wide range of things that we could do.” Today, the paintings remain at the Museum Support Center at Fort Belvoir, Va., a support facility that houses and restores hundreds of years of Army history. The number of artifacts grows daily, but Fairrington estimated there are some 15,000 paintings done by Army veterans housed here. The collections are open to the public and are kept under strict conditions for preservation. “CBS Sunday morning news did a little stint on it about five years ago,” Fairrington said. “Up until then, no one had ever known about this place.” The center houses Fairrington’s own art, along with artwork by other famous artists like Norman Rockwell and Nazi propaganda art. “Every once in a while they do have traveling shows of some of the paintings,” Fairrington said. “One of my paintings was used for an Army magazine cover, one of the paintings was used as an illustration for an Army medical journal,” and other paintings were printed and distributed. “They make use of them,” said Fairrington. The Vietnam experience impacted his art in a way that was opposite the effect it had on his fellow combat artists, Fairrington explained. “I can see how their art changed…it went…kind of on the dark side,” Fairrington said. “Actually, this experience made my art go the other way. It went to the light side. Some of my art’s a little bit sugary…I concentrate on people mostly, to try and capture what these people are feeling, as opposed to going in and just trying to get a physical likeness.” He shared part of his process to get the likeness of someone is hundreds of photographs. “I take between 200 to 400 photos for reference, and then I go through those and choose maybe 10 for reference as I paint. I can study your eyes from one, your nose from another; take your hair and your head from others. I use all of that together and create one piece,” Fairrington said. “Portraiture is a real challenging area. You’re not only getting the physical likeness of someone, but you’re painting their personality onto a canvas.” Typically working on one piece of artwork at a time, Fairrington’s talents aren’t limited solely to portraits; he also paints landscapes, seascapes and other subject matter – earning himself the reputation as “The ‘Degas’ of ballet painters.” Fairrington was named in 2001 as “Master Artist” by International Artist Magazine. Fairrington has also been honored locally in recent years, winning first place at the National Orange Show’s All-California Juried Art Exhibition in 2010 for his still-life of an orange. He has also received the National Orange Show’s Board of Directors’ Purchase Award. When asked when his next beginner’s class is, he will respond, “Today!” All who are interested in art are invited to join his classes, no matter their skill level. For further information on Wednesday’s art classes, contact the Loma Linda Senior Center’s front office at 909-799-2820 or David Fairrington at 951-966-6800. The Loma Linda Senior Center is located at 25571 Barton Road.