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BETTY COUNSELLER
"Finding intriguing ideas becomes a challenge as we age. The fun part of drawing will test and help your motor skills.
There is a big plus, too: You become a work of art! Drawing helps you see better possibilities in your everyday life...for
you who say, 'I can't draw a straight line,' there are no straight lines in nature...all you need is pencil, paper and a sense
of What If?: What marks can I make that will mean something to me?"
The poem below––good advice for anyone who is hesitant about taking the plunge into the practice of art––is
from the "Soul's Discovery" poetry collection by Heather Helen Coe who, coincidentally, is Betty Counseller's granddaughter.
Ms. Coe lives and writes in Loveland, Colorado.
Let go, Just be
Freedom is within your grasp
Just at your
finger tips
You're not afraid of sacrifice or hard work
What are you afraid of?
Relinquish your feeble controls
Never
leave your mind on auto pilot
Never shut down your heart
Open your eyes and leave them open,
Same as your mind
Always
breathe deeply, let your mind wonder
You have longed for freedom since birth,
Shrugged off constraint
But be careful,
never crush freedom
Nor should you clutch
Let it rest in your palm, let it guide you
Love it and let it shine within
you as you soar
Never take it for granted, treasure it, believe in it and...
Just be
Let go and fly
©Heather Helen Coe
BOB GILLIS
Bob Gillis can draw or paint anything that has ever crossed his line of sight, and he has the sketchbooks to prove it.
A lifelong artist, Bob has a thick stack of the books. They contain, if anything, more drawings than DaVinci’s sketchbooks,
and the quality of the work compares favorably with that of the Italian master. He had enormous talent to begin with, which
was disciplined and polished at the Museum College of Art in Philadelphia from where he was graduated in 1959 after Korean
War service in the Air Force. From then on, the daily habit of sketching kept the talent sharp during the 36 years he spent
as an industrial design engineer at RCA and IBM. The sketches have always served him well as sources for a myriad of paintings
on display today from New England to Florida and as far west as Hawaii. One Tucson restaurant, Cafe Ramey, doubles as a gallery
for his work. “I am the son of a career Air Force officer,” Bob explains, “and because of that I was fortunate
to have lived in a great many parts of this wonderful country. My art shows that diversity: mountains one day and the sea
shore the next. I am by preference an impressionist, working in oil and acrylic, although I still do a great deal of pen
and ink work, which is and always has been my first love.” He has one observation applicable to his peers: Sooner
or later even industrial design engineers have to retire. Artists never do.
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A page from a Gillis sketchbook (Click on image to enlarge |
MARIO FRAIRE
"Art provides me with a great avenue for keeping a healthy mental attitiude. There are three things that have truly
enriched my life these past few years: not working, grandchildren, and art."
Pastel was the medium Mario chose for portraits of Granddaughter Develyn, 9, and Grandson Joseph, 4.(Click on the
images to enlarge.)
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Betty Counseller wasn’t expecting a life-changing event, some twenty years ago, when her artist daughter Barbara picked
her up at her house and took her on a surprise outing to a drawing studio at the University of Arizona art department. There,
after having been given a sketch pad and pencil, the fiftyish grandmother was shocked to her midwestern Indiana roots by a
young model who appeared on a dais in the center of the room and shrugged off her robe, which happened to be the only thing
she was wearing. Then, as embarrassment faded quickly away, and the marks she was putting on the paper began actually to
take shape as a human figure, Betty had an epiphany. She knew she had a talent that had lain dormant all her life, and she
recognized it was addictive.
She never looked back. She took all the lessons needed to polish her skills. She began the daily practice of art. She
has had her own studio for years; collectors buy her work.
Betty is proficient in several mediums, working regularly in oils, oil pastels and charcoal.
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A landscape from Betty's "ROAD" series of paintings
(Click on image to enlarge) |
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Betty's "AGING VENUS"
(Click to enlarge) |
"For people looking at my art, I would love it if they could feel the gentle breeze I painted there; to hear the music
made by the rustling of the leaves, especially when I paint in the fall; to let the essence of the light and the taste of
the colors come through."
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Bob's "AUTUMN ASPENS" acryic on board (Click to enlarge) |
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Delicate artistry from the hand of a design engineer (Click to enlarge) |
You may contact Bob at gill@gainusa.com
For Mario Fraire, art has become a multi-generational thing. "I'm one of those guys who gave up art
in his youth to pursue other life endeavors," says Mario. "I did not get serious about it again until last year, and then
it was my grandkids' interest that got me back in art." He says they love doing art with Grandpa, all five of them. He
expects the sixth, due in October, to feel the same way. Those other life endeavors—military service, education, marriage,
career, children, grandchildren—kept him a bit too busy for drawing and painting until he retired from the National
Park Service as a fully-qualified codger. Never having been a lay-about thumb-twiddler, it didn't take long for him to dust
off his long-dormant artistic interests and begin playing catch-up, taking classes in pencil, pastels, oils and, now, clay
sculpture. He discovered that his early talent was still there, strengthened by what he calls "a higher degree of maturity
in drawing." Art, he says, has given him a new sense of life that comes with many positive feelings. Art also appears
to be contagious. Wife Lillian has taken up stained glass. It could be said that they are aging artistically. They recommend
it highly.
This pastel fish by Deveyn is evidence that artistic talent is still blossoming in the Fraire family tree.
You may contact Mario at mrfraire@msn.com
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