Today we’d like to introduce you to Dru Blair
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I got my start taking art as an elective class at the end of my Junior year at Furman University. Before that, I was pursuing a medical career, but I changed my major from biology to art because I enjoyed art so much. The sudden switch to art didn’t provide me with a lot of training, so I decided to pursue a Masters degree at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
While working on my Masters degree in Art, I worked during the summers airbrushing T-shirts in Myrtle Beach. After completing my Masters degree, I moved to Atlanta to pursue a career as a freelance commercial illustrator.
A few years later, I moved to Raleigh, NC and founded an art school, which would eventually become an international school of realism. In 2018 I moved my school to my ancestral town of Blair, SC, a rural community about 40 miles north of Columbia so that I could be closer to my family.
For the part of the year that I wasn’t teaching in Blair, I would travel and teach art workshops in other countries, sometimes touring for months at a time. In 2014 I was invited to teach at a school in Bari, Italy where I met Silvia, Belviso, the owner of that school who would become my wife 6 years later.
In the Summer of 2019, while vacationing in Charleston, I visited a small art school to inquire about renting a space for a remote workshop. The owner mentioned that she wanted to sell the school, and I immediately agreed to buy it.
My fiance immigrated from Italy to the US, and we began teaching at the school in 2020.
Since then, we have expanded the school, adding more classes and workshops in Mt Pleasant.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
When I first began working as a freelance illustrator, I was unaware of the delay between delivering a job, and getting paid. Sometimes I wouldn’t see a check from a job for 3 or 4 months. It was a hard lesson, but it helped me learn to better manage my finances.
Another struggle was dealing with the lockdown during Covid. We had only been operating a few months, before the mandatory school lockdown, but the rent and utilities were still due. Fortunately, my wife and I had begun saving for a home, and we were able to weather the storm.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Most people know me for my photorealistic paintings. I enjoy creating artwork that is so real and detailed that it is indistinguishable from photography.
The airbrush is my favorite tool, because it delivers paint to the canvas in such a subtle manner, that even accomplished artists will question whether the painting is a photograph or made by hand.
It is not unusual for people to accuse me of deception when I post my paintings because they believe I’m posting a photograph instead of a painting. To me, their skepticism is the highest compliment.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Risk comes in different forms. There is financial risk, of which we are all aware, and there is emotional risk, where the consequences of the choices we make may have an impact on our happiness. This could include, love, how we choose to spend our time, who we associate with, or even acquiring a new pet.
I believe that risk is necessary for growth. Art involves risk and experimentation, and while failure will always be a part of experimentation, failure is necessary in order to learn and grow.
One of the most common obstacles to learning is fear of failure. When it comes to art, I often observe fear in adult students, but seldom in children. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, people allow the fear of failure to overcome their sense of curiosity, and they are more hesitant to take artistic risks.
If they could only realize that, with art, the worst thing that can happen is that they will learn something.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.blaircenter.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dru_blair/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dru.Blair
- Other: https://www.schoolofrealism.com
