Barrett Bailey is an Alabama artist working in the classical realist tradition.
Though you will find small still life paintings and an occasional landscape in his online galleries, Bailey is primarily a figure and portrait artist. The Paintings section of his site includes paintings in a range of sizes and degrees of finish, from small portrait sketches to larger scale figure works. For an idea of the scale of his more recent paintings, glance at the photograph of his studio on the Bio page.
Particularly appealing to me are his drawings, both figure drawings and portraits. These are primarily in graphite or charcoal, often on toned paper, and have a variety of surface textures.
Bailey’s site includes a video of the creation of one of his drawings in time lapse, condensing two an a half hours of drawing into less than two minutes. (I mentioned this video previously in my post about ArtDemonstrations.com.)
His bio section also includes a Bookshelf, with some of the books he recommends on figure drawing, portrait painting and related subjects.
Barrett exhibits in Alabama and New York, where he studied at the New York Academy of Art. He in an instructor at Huntingdon College and teaches private Portrait Drawing Classes in Montgomery.
Bailey’s Sea of Tranquility is a stunning tour de force of a figure painting… but the corny mirror effect at the bottom of his home page distracts from his accomplishment (and as a website special effect I’m already tired of it.) Better to see this image among his painting images elsewhere on his site.
But what a wonderful painter. And you are right: his drawings are particularly beautiful. Another example of how great drawing makes for great painting.
Hey Barrett, I enjoyed the painting session last nite. Your site looks good too. Craig