Adding Cats To The Drawing

Adding Cats To The Drawing

Adding Cats To The Drawing

Portraits can be challenging for some artists, because they need to capture emotions, moods, or single moments. One courageous, self taught artist displays his portraits on his living room walls in the home he shares with his wife in Marion. He put together the faces of an American tap dancer, an actor a scientist, the composite between three famous comedians, the traditional cast members of a long running science fiction TV series, a former TV reporter, various rock stars, athletes and entertainers, and his friends for a single montage called "Faces". He favors grabbing shots from videos, which give him a wider range of faces to choose from. The montage documents a year and a half of people who influenced him.

Other portraits hanging on his walls are large individual renditions of a lead singer from Babes in Toyland, a Russian gymnast and singer songwriter. He does most of his work in pencil, graphite, and charcoal. His toolbox was filled out by conte crayon and then colored pencils. His first drawing with colored pencils is of himself and his wife, a native of Kobe, Japan, at their wedding. He felt he did a good job of coupling traditional American drawing and Japanese wood block print in the drawing. The base of it was their wedding picture, a close up taken at City Hall in December 1996, on top of which he added personal and Japanese symbols.

Their three cats had to be drawn in, though they were not at the actual wedding. In making the face of the first cat a mask from Japanese opera, it serves to ward of evil spirits. There is a position of good luck, in which he draws the second cat.

Kimonos are the outfit of the day for the couple in the drawing. With her matriarchal symbol, a flower called the kikyo, he decorated his wife. He decided to draw in a gingko tree, past the third cat, behind the vertical blinds, outside the room. Longevity is symbolized by the gingko, which the artist thought of drawing after he saw a tree at the University of Iowa.

The first partner project the couple completed was the 1997 drawing. It was his wife's job to develop and critique ideas. The drawing has high sentimental value for them, said the wife. As long as he can incorporate people and faces, he would like to try landscapes next.

Although he's never had a previous exhibit of his work, four of his drawings have been included in a book, and one of his drawings was used for the cover. A staff member showed his work to the book editor. He received an email from the editor, who praised his artistic talent in combining portraiture with architecture, and weaving intelligence and humor throughout the work. All he drew as a child were action heroes and rock stars, and he has come a long way from then. Today, he has gained the ability to portray what is in his mind. He describes the process as a way of taking a photograph, in which the artist has the freedom to move things around.

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