I am known for three things, painting, big afro hair and aside from maybe Jesus, being pretty much the nicest person who ever lived with my smiling face and talk of happy little clouds and trees in a voice that never rose above that of a gentle lullaby but that wasn't always the case, i was a hard-assed drill sergeant in the Air Force for 20 years stationed in Alaska and would bellow at poor sods to clean the latrines, make their beds and shine their shoes.
When i eventually left i promised i would be the exact opposite of the awful person i was for those two decades and fortunately for me, i spent much of my non-screaming time taking art classes and painting the Alaskan wilderness around me of mountains, lakes, snow and log cabin scenes using a technique i saw on TV show called The Magic Of Oil Painting by Bill Alexander.
I began selling my paintings and found that i could make more money selling them than yelling at cadets for not having their boots properly spit-shined so quit and tracked down Alexander and asked him to teach me the technique he used, known as 'wet-on-wet' which was nothing new, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Paul Cézanne and Monet used the same technique to knock out paintings in double quick time.
As i was so good at it and could make a painting in under 30 minutes, i was approached by PBS to front a painting show called The Joy of Painting teaching Alexander's technique which i agreed to as it would help sell my painting and promote a line of my own art supplies, building what would become a $15 million business.
I painted over 30,000 paintings during my lifetime, many i donated to PBS for fund raising and would paint three versions of the one you saw on my TV show, the first one painted prior to taping and sat on an easel off-camera during filming as a reference to create the second copy which viewers actually watched me paint and after filming the episode, i would paint a more detailed version for my personal collection.
People did wonder why i painted quite so many trees but i liked looking at trees and your options are to either paint one to look at or drag one through your home and put in in a corner leaving a wake of twigs and leaves that'll be showing up in the most random places for the next six months.
I often said that we don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents and that was exactly what happened with my hair which was a perm job, the idea was that it would save me having to pay out for haircuts when i started out as a struggling painter but once the art took off and it got incorporated into the logo so i had to stay with it, never really liked it much though.
A heavy cigarette smoker, i suffered several health problems over the course of my life and developed cancer and lost my hair and wore a wig to keep up appearances until i died at the age of 52.
So my message is enjoy the happy trees, mighty mountains and fluffy clouds but most importantly, be sure to use odorless paint-thinner. God Bless.
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