I have always enjoyed drawing. When I was in high school I was
constantly drawing cars or car related things that were popular in
the early 60's. I attended a school that was closer to the country
than the suburbs and they only had basic classes at that time. They
started art classes in my sophomore year and I readily took them.
At that time there was something called the National Scholastic Art
program. One year I entered a watercolor painting and received a
national award for it.
After high school I attended Cooper Art School in Cleveland for
a little over a year. I had to leave prematurely so I worked
in the advertising art department
for the city newspaper and then at several local art studios.
The Viet Nam war was getting bigger at the time and I got drafted so that interrupted
my art work for a few years. I wanted to get back into art when I got out of
the Army but most of the studios found my two year absence as a way to start
me at the bottom so my vocation took a different direction.
I would still sketch when I had the time but as everyone knows
when you're working and trying to raise a family it doesn't
leave much time for artwork.
As my children
got older and more independent I took a few watercolor classes at the local
vocational school. Being around other people who enjoyed creating got my
artistic mind going
again. About ten years ago I took an airbrush class and started doing some
automobile paintings. It seemed the more I did the more I wanted to learn
and that led me
to colored pencils.
I had been looking on line at some of the great work that people
were doing with pencils and came across Ann Kullberg's work.
I purchased one of her
books and
bought all of the materials that she recommended. I had never done that
much portrait work in my life, just quick sketches for people,
but now I was hooked.
I have done a number of portraits and a few on commission but have branched
out to all different types of subject matter. As with every medium there
is so much
to learn and by doing portraits, landscapes, automobiles etc. you have
the opportunity to work with so many textures, clothing,
skin, metal and more.
Each one requires
a different technique to show itself. I still do the occasional watercolor
but I have found a home with colored pencils. Now if I could just find
a way to do
them more quickly.
