Donald Robertson Talks Express Art, Funboy Pool Floats, Buying Billie Lourd’s House
Donald Robertson will be living up to his “Drawbertson” Instagram handle at Tuesday night’s New Yorkers for Children gala.
The artist will be doing on-the-spot drawings for guests at “A Fool’s Fête: Enchanted Garden” at the Mandarin Oriental for a crowd of 350. “I love doing live painting. I’m known for this in the past, but never in a charity aspect.” Robertson said Monday. “I can do a million, because I’m super fast.”
So much so that a two-minute time frame isn’t out of the realm of possibilities. “They are super fast ‘painty’ sketches, so I can crank them out pretty quickly. I do think it’s the nature of the medium. I’ve been doing it for so long that I can capture people pretty quickly. I call it art-ism.” Robertson said.
As for how he has excelled at express art, Robertson said, “I would just say, I black out and I can whip them off. Then I come to and it’s sitting in front of me.” (He also took care of the invitations.)
Alice + Olivia’s Stacey Bendet, Waris Ahluwalia, Selita Ebanks and Crystal Renn are expected to be at the spring celebration, which has Chloe as a lead fashion sponsor.
Robertson has other fashion-related projects in the works, though he was hesitant to be too specific. “Let’s just say Linda Fargo and I have some fun stuff coming up, and Funboy pool floats have some fun things coming up — really fun.” Robertson said.
On a more personal note, Robertson and his wife, Kim Gieske, have “finalized finally on kids’ schools and living arrangements” for their family. “We’re done — half Montecito, half L.A. We’re literally doing what people do in New York. We’re doing the New York-East Hampton thing but the L.A. version is Montecito-L.A.” he said. “The kids don’t want to leave the beach. And we were trying to drag them back to the city but they won’t come.”
With two children in college in Los Angeles and three in school at the beach, the setup is a balanced one. Robertson said they will be closing in on buying actress Billie Lourd’s house in Santa Monica’s Sunset Park neighborhood any day. “It’s the perfect house for me because it’s a big gallery space so I can paint in every room.” he said. “My wife found it. It was a score.”
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