| My passion and skill as an artist
began to develop at an early age. I grew up in the presence of art. My father was an illustrator
for the U.S. Air Force for much of his career. He always had magazines about art and graphics lying
around the house. He was particularly fond of Andrew Wyeth and Norman Rockwell.
One of the first Norman Rockwell space paintings I remember seeing is
the pre-landing depiction of an astronaut stepping off the foot pad of a Lunar Module onto the surface
of the Moon published in a special spaceflight edition of Look magazine in 1967.
It was images such as this that ignited my passion for space art. I believe
the things that capture your imagination when you are between the ages of 7 and 12 are the things that
become your life passions. Between 1967 and 1972 NASA launched eleven Apollo manned spaceflight missions,
nine of which sent men to the moon. Those were the very years I was ages 7 through 12. If you are
searching for your passions in your adult life, look back to those childhood years to find them.
Life, Look, and National Geographic magazines introduced me to the work of
other aviation and space artists such as Robert McCall, Keith Ferris, Paul Calle, and Fred Freeman.
Artist’s renderings by Pierre Mion, Davis Meltzer, and Francis J. Krasyk depicting the events of the
space age made a lasting impression on me.
I found particularly fascinating the articles that showed how the artists
created their works in their studios and on location. I would study their techniques and equipment,
how they held their brushes, the color pallets they used, and the concept sketches they made prior to
working on the completed paintings.
Having grown up in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, I enjoyed
frequent visits to the Smithsonian National Air and Space museum. It was there that I got to see
some of the paintings of these artists first hand. I continue to be impressed by the giant wall
murals by Robert McCall and Keith Ferris.
When it came to pursuing a career, instead of art I chose aerospace
engineering to make my livelihood. Since 1983 I have worked in the field of conceptual and
preliminary design of aircraft ranging from helicopters to commercial airliners. Early in my
career I became involved in developing software tools and methods to assist in designing aircraft.
It was while working on those tools that I was exposed to the ability of computers to draw pictures.
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