Aviation and Motorsports Fine Art

About the Artist

Darrell White

For more than 30 years, Darrell paints the aircraft, cars and motorcycles that he loves. He captures that one specific moment in time, frozen on canvas, which evokes an emotion from the viewer. He studies the subjects and focuses on a specific angle which shows the iconic flowing lines or a specific design feature which would be immediately recognizable to the viewer. This American oil painter specializes in fine art of military aviation and motorsports, with original oil paintings and limited edition prints in collections from those just admiring a subject or serious art collectors across the United States and across the globe. His paintings and prints are owned by both domestic and international collectors and are featured in several well-known museums.

Darrell's father served in the U.S. Navy as aircrew, flying in the Lockheed P-2 Neptune and the Grumman S-2 Tracker, and was a talented painter in his own right, having been accepted into art school at Penn State prior to his Naval service. However, he later went into Mechanical Engineering instead, but continued painting during his college years and a little after. He gave it up to pursue his engineering career and he wished he had continued painting too.

"I don't just paint a machine, I paint a machine and give it life." — Darrell White

At a very young age, Darrell would pull down his father's aviation books and look at the paintings by Wootton and Smith and try to replicate the scenes in pencil or create his own. He built his craft the deliberate way, one step at a time. He started in pencil like most kids do, then on to watercolor for a brief period - but using water color as a thick paint, rather than watering in down properly. Lastly, he found his Mom's old oil color set, which was about 30 years old at the time, probably from the early 1960's, yet the oil tubes were still usable, and then began oil painting. Darrell experimented with oils in his early teens and then into high school. The oils really helped to develop his sense of color and how to use highlights and shadows and to develop a particular style that has stuck with him ever since. Painting started to take a backseat to high school jobs, baseball, and working on cars. Before painting became full time work, Darrell spent years as a designer for industries such as telecommunications, industrial battery testing and charging equipment, compression pharmaceutical tablet machines and even Nike Air shoes. However, everything kept pointing him back to art and painting. His design work was a reflection of his art and his art was a reflection of that career choice. During this time, he started getting interested in motorcycles, more specifically, sport bikes and then track days and racing. Darrell started doing pieces for friends in the local race group, mostly using prismacolor pencils, and his work sold quickly once he began showing it at the tracks. Then, an art career was born. After a couple years of commission work in Prismacolor pencils of other motorcycle racers, Darrell got back into oils where he really honed his skills of creating color richness, ultra smooth blending and fine precision details using the best oil paints available.

His subjects come from multiple interests - military aviation and years spent with cars and motorcycles. Darrell captures the uniqueness of these machines and those who pilot, drive or ride them on canvas with color, purpose and emotion.

30+

Years Painting

U.S. & Abroad

Domestic & International Clients

Original Oils

In Private Collections, Museums, and Galleries

Prints

Limited Edition and Some Remarques Available