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A Nurtured Talent
Dan Rogers has been a student of art and the human body all his life. As the son of two medical professionals, and the grandson of a lithographer, Dan’s natural talent for art and fascination for human anatomy have been encouraged since day one. His formal art training began at age 6 at the Milwaukee Art Museum. He developed his artistic skills through countless studies of the museum’s collection, Milwaukee lakefront, downtown architecture and the people around him. At an early age his natural ability to capture a person’s likeness was clear.
Education & Training
He earned a Bachelor of Arts at Oberlin College with emphasis on biology and studio art. After graduating he attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he focused on figure painting, figure sculpture, scientific illustration, anatomical sketching and portraiture. When he wasn’t creating art, he spent his time observing and soaking up inspiration from the world-class collections of 15th to 20th century European and American paintings in the Art Institute, where his passion for classic, oil-on-canvas portraiture was first realized. Following art school, Dan entered the prestigious graduate program in Medical Illustration at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he took medical school |
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courses and visual communication curriculum including gross anatomy, prosthetics, medical photography and surgical illustration. It is this training that gives Dan an exceptional understanding of the human figure and the anatomy that shapes it's external surface, color and texture.
Medical Illustration
Applied to Portraiture
After earning his Master of Arts degree Dan worked as a medical illustrator and creative director for 10 years. He taught adult courses in various fields of commercial art, and founded Graphic Pulse, Inc., a successful medical communications company. Dan's cover illustrations have been featured on major medical publications including several issues of Veterinary Medicine, the Journal of Teratology, and medical books from Garland Science Publishing and Harvard Medical School. His animations have been featured on national television including ABC World News with Charles Gibson. Dan's marketing experience has refined his ability to capture an audience and visually communicate a specific feeling or message with elegance.
In his 3D animation work, Dan spent years developing a keen understanding of the many properties and behaviors that contribute to a realistic rendering... The unique intensity, temperature, color and softness of each light and shadow. |
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Light behaviors including reflection, refraction, diffusion, light decay and displacement. Surface properties such as opacity, smoothness, glossiness and wetness. And surface details, like specular highlights, vascularization, body hair, pigment variation, tightness and cleanliness. Today Dan uses a mastery of all these elements to breath life into his portraits.
A Return to Oils
After serving as creative director of Graphic Pulse for several years, Dan re-devoted himself to portraiture. He discovered that virtually all his career knowledge could be directly applied to portrait painting. Rendering skills from years of illustration and animation allow him to create a beautiful composition that is the spitting image of an individual. His visual communication skills allow him to capture and communicate the true essence of a person's character. By combining this experience with 25 years of painting Dan has become a master of his craft. Today he paints portraits from his studio within walking distance from the Art Institute of Chicago where his passion for portraiture originated and where he returns regularly for inspiration. Dan fully invests himself in every portrait and knows no greater joy than to see the happy reactions to his paintings with the knowledge that each client will have something to cherish for a lifetime. |
