[Jacqueline Dunster]

I studied illustration in art school (in Los Angeles), and all of us were required to have a celebrity portrait in our portfolio. Fortunately, I loved movies, had already drawn (and sold) a lot of celebrity portraits, so producing celebrity portraits was no hardship for me.

I guess because of my background, I shrug my shoulders at the celebrity portraits. I see no big stigma there, but I can see why others do. "Fine Art" portraiture is different than illustration, after all.

I've also been commissioned to do portraits for celebrities. (Hey! I'm from L.A.!) Jaclyn Smith's secretary hired me to do a pencil portrait. I was giving a promotional still to use as reference. Jaclyn liked it very much, and gave me an autographed photo (which I have misplaced, of course).

A friend of actor Robert Ito (from "Quincy") hired me to do a portrait of Ito and co-star Jack Klugman. The friend said that Ito never had a picture of himself with Klugman, and she wanted to give him one. I presume he liked it. I was also given promotional stills as reference.

And then there was the one of David Hasselhoff. I was hired by an acquaintance of David's then-wife to do a portrait of them together. I used a combination of promotional stills, and watched videos of them (the wife was a soap opera actress) to get the likenesses right. It would be fair to say that no one photo was "reference". Hasselhoff and his wife liked the portrait - I was given a picture of them posing with it. But of course, once again, I have misplaced the photo!

I think that with a more traditional portrait artist, it would be important to have portraits of "ordinary" people. I don't feel any shame in my celebrity portraits. It is part of my background, and also part of going to art school in L.A.!

I do agree, painting and drawing from life is something that should be done as much as possible. Obviously it cannot be done all the time. But it's a wonderful experience to be able to observe your model from life, and at least get some sketches, or something! And, using your own photos is always better than using someone else's. Of course, when you are doing a portrait of someone who has passed away, you haven't got many choices.