Aussie greenthumb paints Irwin portrait
Friday, 23 February 2007


"I just felt like I wanted to give something to Steve's family to show my respect." Jason Swain

Steve Irwin's death inspired many people to act including landscaper and portrait painter Jason Swain who this week personally delivered his impression of the croc hunter to the Australia Zoo.

Australia Zoo's Curator Kelsey Engle accepted the painting on behalf of Terry Irwin and Zoo officials say the painting will be put on display in the Crocoseum.

Swain who grew up near the Zoo but moved to Maryland near Washington as a landscaper says the painting was a worthy project. "I just felt like I wanted to give something to Steve's family to show my respect."

Jason's artwork is well known is the U.S. One of his works includes being commissioned to paint a portrait of Bill Clinton's dog, Buddy, and although the painting was apparently well received, Buddy was struck by a car and died on the same day the painting was delivered to it's new owners.

The story of how Jason came to paint Steve Irwin's portrait is just as intriguing. "I painted a picture of Steve on my landscaping truck and an executive from the Discovery Channel saw it and asked me to send him a picture of it. That circulated around the Discovery headquarters and then I got a call back from one of the bosses. He said we're interested in doing a portrait for one of the headquarters in Silver Spring and I suggested doing one for the Irwin family and they said; yeah, right we'll call you. And so I pressed ahead with the painting anyway and started work on it."

Jason hopes smaller copies of the portrait may be sold in the future to raise money for the Steve Irwin charity 'Wildlife Warriors'.

Swain says choosing a picture of Steve was very difficult. "We went through about two to three hundred different photos and I just couldn't find the one that was representative of Steve. But finally the folks from Discovery sent a CD and it had some high-resolution photos of him and I settled on this one, which was a real typical Steve picture. It was a real close-up of his face, and you could see the intensity, and you could see how much he loved his job."

It took Jason nine weeks to finish to painting. "I spent about three to four hours a night in the bedroom with the radio cranked and I'd have a couple of scotches to settle the nerves a bit and away I'd go," says Jason.

Although oil paints were used, Jason says, he "layered it on pretty thick". "I used anything from a fine hair brush up to a two-inch brush. The lizard was actually the hardest part; it was just really detailed. I had to do each increment separately, so I wouldn't get too confused," says Jason.

So, is it Jason Swain the landscaper now or Jason Swain the painter? "I'll still garden but painting is my passion and it's just something I stumbled into and it's the only thing I've ever been able to concentrate on for longer than five minutes and do well at it."