Moments In Time Transferred From Photograph

To Portrait: Paintings By Regina Del Rossi

By Shannon Hicks

In addition to its dining atmosphere, The Inn at Newtown has always been a showcase for artwork, whether in its dining room, the front parlor, or the corridor running from the parlor down to the guest wing, from the time the restaurant opened its doors. Owner Rob Ryder, who has owned the restaurant since October 1999, has presented works of fine art from a personal collection in the dining areas, and has showcased local artists such as Claudia Clancy Mitchell, Diane Dutchick, and Dick McEvoy in the long exhibition area provided by the aforementioned corridor.

For the past month the restaurant has been presenting one area of its parlor the work of a Sandy Hook resident who recently rediscovered the joy that painting brings her. She has been drawing for years, and finally took the big step of picking up a paintbrush to put oil to canvas.

Regina Del Rossi has been drawing for about a year, first working in charcoal to create portraits from photographs of family members and friends. Her background in illustration comes from years of study at the University of Bridgeport, where she majored in prearchitecture studies (now called visual arts). She took a number of courses to study design and architecture and even worked with sculpture while in school, but it was not until last year that Mrs Del Rossi picked up a paintbrush.

The mother of four children — Ryan, age 16; Christian Rose, 14; and twins John and Carolyn, 6 — Mrs Del Rossi works part-time at The Inn at Newtown, and has begun spending much of her free time in a workspace she has set up in the home she and her husband Chuck have owned in Sandy Hook since 1981. Painting is something Mrs Del Rossi has wanted to work on for a number of years.

“I have a lot of photographs of my children and I knew there were some that I wanted turned into paintings. My kids are the most important thing in my life, but it’s hard to paint around four children,” she said.

 “I held onto these photos knowing that they were moments in time,” she added. “I knew that I would paint them someday, that I would be able to go back and capture that moment in time.”

Mrs Del Rossi’s exhibition at The Inn at Newtown offers four paintings on the back wall of the parlor (behind the reception desk, leading toward the inn’s main dining room). On a small table next to the paintings is a notebook that shows viewers the original photos Mrs Del Rossi worked from for each of the paintings on view.

The paintings were just a progression of the resurrected illustration work Mrs Del Rossi began for family and friends a few years ago, she says.

“I started by just fooling around, seeing what I could do while working from some photographs,” Mrs Del Rossi explained. “I went from the photographs to drawing with pencil and charcoal, and then began to play with painting.”

The self-taught artist (when it comes to her painting) prefers to create her portraits in oil. She had used acrylics while in college and had to create color wheels, but says now that she was not impressed with the feeling of acrylics.

“Oil is such a traditional medium,” she said. “I like the permanence of oil.”

The four portraits on view at The Inn at Newtown are all views of Mrs Del Rossi’s family. They capture moments in time, and strong expressions.

A portrait of Christian Rose when she was 6 shows an almost petulant girl who is impatiently waiting for a photograph to be snapped. The girl is wearing a deep maroon-colored hat, a dark winter coat, and an expression that really says, “Come on already!”

“It was cold, she wasn’t very happy at waiting for that picture to be taken,” laughed Mrs Del Rossi, who had perfectly re-created the moment’s feeling with her oil paints. “She just looks like winter.”

Another portrait, of her younger son John, depicts the boy when he was about 2 years old. He is lying in an armchair, the with sunshine from an unseen window highlighting his hair.

“I was very interested in his beautiful hair when I worked on this painting,” said Mrs Del Rossi.

The other two paintings on view are “Carolyn and Delphine,” which depicts the younger Del Rossi daughter also about age 2, holding a rooster, and “My Father and Son,” showing Mrs Del Rossi’s father, Al Fenaroli, sitting on a porch with Ryan when he was about 8 years old.

Mrs Del Rossi, who is a member of The Society of Creative Arts of Newtown (SCAN) and Kent Art Association (KAA), prefers to work from photographs rather than setting up a sitting because photos truly capture a moment in time.

“I like to take the photos that I’ll be working with because that allows me to work on a project from conception to conclusion,” she explained. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t allow someone to give me one of their photos to paint.”

Mrs Del Rossi is currently waiting to receive some photos, in fact, from a couple who want her to paint their grandchildren.

Mrs Del Rossi is also going to be heading to the beach with another family in the near future because the parents would like a portrait done of their children. Mrs Del Rossi will be taking the photo that she will base that portrait on when the weather gets warmer.

In the meantime she is also working on a new portrait of daughter Carolyn, who is sitting in a chair with the family dog, a pug named Mona Lisa, sitting on the floor next to the chair.

“They’re both wearing the same expression,” says Mrs Del Rossi.

Mrs Del Rossi received her bachelor of science degree in architecture studies, and then made the conscious decision to stop her education at that point. Pursuing a master’s would have meant studying at Yale University, at the time the only university in the state that offered a master’s in her specialty, or going into New York City.

Already the mother of two children by then, however, Mrs Del Rossi decided she had spent enough time in school.

“I’m happy to see my life progressing,” she said last week. “It’s fantastic to me. I’m very happy. I purposely chose to focus on my husband and our children.”

Her husband, Chuck, is a composer and a musician. Being surrounded by this kind of artistic environment has rubbed off on the Del Rossi children.

“They do beautiful artwork,” says Mrs Del Rossi. “They’re very talented.”

Mrs Del Rossi had work in last year’s spring SCAN show – it was a drawing of one of her daughters, rather than the portrait she originally intended to put into the show, because the portrait wasn’t ready for hanging – and one of last year’s KAA show. The current showing of her works is the first one-artist show she has had the opportunity to do.

“This is really amazing to me,” Mrs Del Rossi said last week, sitting in the parlor of The Inn at Newtown. “The owner’s mother [Darlene Ryder] usually has beautiful pieces hanging in the area where my artwork has been presented. When they offered me that space I was completely surprised.

“It’s nice to work for people who support something you do outside the work environment,” Mrs Del Rossi added.

This may be the first of a series of shows the Sandy Hook artist puts together. After a recent weekend trip to the southeast corner of Connecticut, Mrs Del Rossi is waiting to hear from J. Edwards Winery in Stonington, where her work is expected to be featured during a month-long exhibition in the near future.

Mrs Del Rossi’s paintings are on view indefinitely at The Inn at Newtown, 19 Main Street in Newtown. Mrs Del Rossi can be contacted by calling 426-6526 or sending email to CDelRossi@yahoo.com.