Anna and Puhyu in Peru Painting

My interest in art began when I was in third grade. My class was assigned a drawing to do so I looked out the window, saw an interesting tree and drew it. I received positive feedback and was hooked. In high school my subject preference turned to portraiture. I started gaining some notoriety for my pencil portraits. In my senior year, a local bank hired me to sit in their new lobby and sketch their customers for two days. I did over fifty drawings in those two days. A year after I graduated from high school, I spent a summer in Steamboat Springs Colorado at the Rusty Night Gallery doing pencil portraits and commissioned drawings. At the end of the summer, I returned to Kearney State College to resume my double major in Art and Music. In the fall of 1972, I met the love of my life and my priorities began to change. In 1976 I changed my major to Buisiness snd Computer Science. I thought this was a more lucrative way to finance my art and music passions. I worked as a computer programmer and IT administrator while I did the occasional portrait commissions and musical performances. My career in IT would last thirty five years. I retired in 2014 and turned my attention back to art as a full time endeavor. In the last three years, I’ve done hundreds of pencil portraits and about forty oil paintings, mostly portraits. My style of painting is best described as Premier Coup which was inspired by artists such as Everette Kinstler, John Sanden, and John Sargent. I bought and studied many instructional videos and books from Daniel Greene and John Sanden. They became my mentors In portraiture. I am currently concentrating on oil paintings, but still occasionally take commissions for pencil portraits. Retirement has actually been a career change for me and I totally enjoy it.