Though I've never had any formal training, I’ve always felt God had given me some talent for drawing.  At an early age, I remember my parents providing me with a copy of "Learn to Draw with John Gnagy".  I think I even recall watching reruns of his program on TV and practicing the simple lessons on shape, shading, the human figure, foreshortening and perspective... again and again and again.  Then I would practice numerous attempts at my favorite scenes he portrayed in lessons in the book.  I would use pencil, charcoal and pastel.

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In middle school I recall being in one 8th grade art class - we played around with various media.  But always, drawing and pastels were my favorite media.   I have recollections of drawing a picture of the campus of Malaga Cove School that the principal kept to hang in his office, and another drawing of an elderly farmer gentlemen drawn from imagination that the art teacher kept.  I have no other work from this time.

With high school came a whole new set of activities and interests - and art took a backburner to track, band, cross country & track, studies and friends.

 

In college, I ended up drawing all our engineering lab equipment setups for our lab reports and became familiar with pen and ink in the process.  That piqued the interest of a friend heading off into military service who asked me to draw an F18 that he hoped to be flying at some point after completing basic training.  My dad was an aerospace engineer who worked on both the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs and I would follow those and all NASA programs with a passion.  Occasionally I would sketch imagined interior and exterior views of the (yet unlaunched) Space Shuttle orbiting earth. 

After graduating, I launched into an exciting career at a top aerospace company working on satellite design. I think I did one more pen and ink drawing for a nonprofit advocacy organization called OASIS that was used for an ad in OMNI magazine (anybody remember that one?). This was early 1980s.

 

Aggressive career growth, marriage and a family followed suit. Art became a distant memory.

 
In February of 2015, dabbling in art was resurrected when I was impacted by a companywide layoff. I found myself drawing once again.  It was more curiosity, at this point, than anything.  Could I still draw?  Would this be my next career move?  To my surprise - the gift was still there, but the experiment was short lived.

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I was rehired back and once again art was put on hold.

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As of February 2021, I formally retired from the corporate world.  I've decided to give God His due and try using these undisciplined talents for His glory.  All my work is signed with some form of "To God Be the Glory" in either Greek or Latin.  He is the one who gets all the credit.

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When you look at my drawings, I hope you hear the catchphrase of the character Fred Z. Randall echoing in your minds.  In the Disney space comedy "Rocketman", every time something happened (usually bad)...he repeatedly says, "It wasn't me!" 

So, conversely, with my artwork.  Anything that comes out looking good "wasn't me."  It was the One above.

I hope you are blessed by the work as He has blessed me with the eye and hand to create it!

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Rick

"Δόξα τω Θεώ"