I am a self-taught artist. I started drawing as soon as I could hold a Crayola crayon and went from there. Type your paragraph here. I knew at an early age that something was wrong with colors. I would stare down at my 101 Crayola crayon box and wonder what most of the colors were. I could tell that there were 12 different "blue" crayons but I did not know why there were so many. I would wind up reading the names of the colors on each crayon but I never could identify any of them without reading their names. There is a medical name for, and I was certain that I was "color stupid". This means that one could not recall and remember a color five minutes after looking at it. It wasn't until I was in first grade when I failed color blindness test and was finally told that I was not "color stupid" but that I could not see colors correctly in the first place.
As my love for drawing continued, I gave color altogether. I used pencil for the longest time before discovering the pen. As you might know that the body compensates for things that it lacks. Blind people have better hearing and in my case I developed or was born with an natural ability to see and understand perspective and shading (contrast). I also naturally loved detail and enjoyed the challenge of "seeing" complex structures and making them appear three dimensional where they would appear to "pop" out of the page.
As I grew older, I developed interests in history, architecture and styles from the Victorian era. These interests plus a love for trains drew me (sorry for the pun) to steam engines, Victorian houses and old buildings from around 1890. My first pen drawing of a street scene was drawn when I was 14 and it is up on my wall to this day. As mentioned, I am self-taught and only have taken two art classes in high school and never did well in them. In college, my skill in drawing old homes, train stations and locomotives was so strong that I started to do "art-in-the-park" shows near where I lived. I did reasonably well.
When I moved to Portland OR in 1980, I did a collection of old home in Portland that had been torn down. Armed with this "Portland" collection plus many of my earlier works, I joined the Portland Saturday Market in 1984. I did one season but being recently married and with our first born on the way, I retired from the show. After 25 years of family and career (high technology), I decided to pick up a pen and attempt to draw again. I started small, with "study" of the springer suspension assembly of an old Harley. It turned out "OK" so I then drew the side view of a Harley Sportster engine and tank. It is still on display to this day. From there I did a run of most of the drawings you see today in my gallery. Those drawing took over 8 years to complete as I take about 25 hours to drawing them completely free-hand. At one to two hours a week, it took months to draw them and when it is nice up here the Pacific Northwest, I would not stay inside to draw. This is why over the last 9 years, I have only finished 15 drawings.
Today, I am nearly retired from my career work and I am much more interested in my craft. I restarted Saturday Market this year and enjoy hearing the comments regarding my art. With more time and with the interest of customers of Saturday Market, I have completed three new works this summer. I am now hitting about one new drawing a month, up from two a year. Granted, art subjects are a bit more targeted to the out-of-town visitors to Portland but they seem to be enjoyed by all and they do tend to sell a bit more than the other topics.
About Me
David Blass
It's called "Black Line Creations" for a reason