Drawings 3

This image was illustrated by me for a company I worked for in the eighties and nineties I will call Jab Art Enterprises. I worked for a guy I'll call Jude. I started there in 1984 and worked for Jude till 1997. For a long while I thought I would never be able to leave that job. More on that in some other post, some another time.

Cypress Point by M Francis McCarthy

Jude marketed this drawing and others to places like Montgomery Wards and J. C. Penney as part of a "California"series. The ink drawings were photocopied and then hand water colored. The Series featured points of interest in California  

At Jab Art Enterprises we primarily did contract framing on a large scale. We also produced "graphics" for the hospitality industry. At the time I drew this we we're more into department stores. I'm not sure if any of them bought this. 

The painter in me was coming out for the first time back then. You can see it for example in the way I knocked out the highlights from the cypress tree with white paint. 

At that time I was taking painting lessons from Smitty, a customer of Jab Art Enterprises. Smitty taught oil painting to stressed out corporate types as a regular gig. He had a few companies that he would set up in after hours and their employees would come and learn how to paint. Smitty provided everything that was needed including frames that he purchased from Jab Art.

He practiced a form of the Bob Ross style, quick landscape painting that was easy to learn. For my part I always preferred to use actual landscape photos rather than copy the formula paintings from a book that Smitty provided as reference for his students.

I owe Smitty a lot as he not only taught me for free but he also provided the art materials and picked me up for class. A wonderful man I'll always remember with gratitude. He is one of the reasons I write this blog and share what I've learned about art freely.

Cheers, Smitty wherever you are now.