A little background and short explanation regarding the addition of these "Art" pages to my web site are in order perhaps. Let me start right out with the biggest and "bottom line" reason; everything else is just extra background. I want to preserve my short but productive journey into self-taught art for my progeny and other interested parties. That's it! My fond hope is that in so doing someone might decide to look into their own possible talent and do so both sooner and longer than I did. Art is a great comfort, satisfaction, and probing device of the heart, soul, and mind in my opinion. I had been wanting to do this for some time but until recently I didn't have the capability to scan the 35mm slides I had taken of most of my art works. I subscribe to the theory and writings of  Betty Edwards in "Drawing On The Right Side of The Brain". Anyone can draw! Granted some come to it easier than others and do it in ways more pleasing or interesting to others. Anyone can do it, though and will surprise themselves not only with how well they do it but how easily and quickly they can improve, if they just want to enough to go on and do it. If you don't believe that, get a copy of Ms. Edwards' book. You don't even have to buy it probably, you can check it out at a library, or just sit at a table there with it and read the first chapter or two and see where it takes you. Deal? Deal! Did I start that way? No. I found her book later  - but wished I'd found it sooner.

I'll tell you how I started. As I child I was always  "droodling" but none of it was good. I could see it in my mind's eye but couldn't transfer it to paper. In art periods or classes I was a total mess. I had no understanding of perspective and the only way I could do a drawing was to graph an existing one, make another blank graph, and put the same lines in each square. I did this often with comic book characters and book illustrations and found I could make them larger or smaller also. I did quite good at that, if I do say so myself and tacked them up on the walls of my rooms. As I matured I stopped doing that unless I was making a training aid for a class I was instructing (in the Marine Corps) or something of that nature. However I still did bad little sketches whenever my idle hand found a pencil and paper near. My mother used to say if she ever came home and I had been in the house for any length of time , she would know it from the "droodles" she would find laying around on the tables, near the phone, etc. Even that habit diminished with time and varied interests. Much later, in Late 1982 (at age 47) I was running my own small night club and doing disc jockey duties for it as well. As a promotion we decided to have a "Sadie Hawkins Day Dance" and award prizes for the best costumes, based on Al Capp's "Li'l Abner" comic strip. My customers and club members wasted no time in letting me know they not only couldn't remember the costumes but some didn't even remember the comic strip. I called the library after having no luck finding a reference book at local outlets. They had to send to Raleigh, NC to get a copy of a soft cover book on Mr. Capp's works for me to check out. I later had a book store order  a personal copy for me and bought it. I had in mind to pull my old "graphing" trick to make illustrations of the "Dogpatch" costumes and characters just large enough to put on the wall for the patrons to see and get ideas from. It would serve to decorate the club for the pending shindig at the same time. When I went to do the first one or two I quickly found I not only didn't need the full graph but could save time by not graphing at all. I was amazed to find I could copy the drawings and even enlarge them without the aid of graphs. I could Draw! (The party was a gratifying success.) In retrospect, and after reading Ms. Edwards' book, I can only explain it by the fact that I had reached a quieter time in my life and was suddenly able to reach the "right side of my brain" more readily. After that, I started trying to see what else I could do with my new found gift. This slide collection is not only a chronological progression of the pictures I drew but also of the progress I made. I advanced by buying books on different subjects and materials I found interest in, reading, and doing. That included mating, framing, and photographing, art works. I just could not get enough of any aspect of it. I even started entering some local shows and took a few awards. I also had a number of one man shows at local Banks, libraries, hospitals, and Art Councils. It worked out well, as just about that time I had to have an operation  and was not able to work for a period of time. When we moved to Maine to look after my mother in her waning years, usable space was limited and I renewed old interests in the outdoors. I only completed one work after that.

Caution: When I first started testing my artistic wings, probably because of the influence of Al Capp's  "Daisy Mae" and other gals, some of my early works were nudes. If you think you might not consider those as art you have some choices. You could just turn back and not enter at all. (Don't do that!) You can boldly enter and sort of skim over those particular thumbnails without clicking on them for the larger view. Finally, you can simply skip the first page, as that is where they all fell in the order. There are four pages in all. I would hate to have you skip that first page though, as many of my early pencil works of other subjects, as well as colored pencil and early pastel works would also be missed. What the heck, just suck it up and consider it for what it is - an artistic evolution of the good, the bad, and the so-so. I hope you enjoy whatever you choose to do.

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