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It started when The New Theatre Guild asked john and joyce to take charge of the Men's Raffle for The Guild's "Valentine Fling" on the evening of February 14th, 2007. See http://www.tntguild.org or click here to see more photos of the Valentine Fling .
Jane Broski had been coming to joyce's water aerobics class for a number
of years, so joyce knew Fred Broski painted oils. Fred had been the weather
man on Kansas City's Channel 9 television for many years, and is also
famous for being the MC on the TV program "Bowling For Dollars".
john called Fred, and asked if he would donate one of his oils for the Fling. Fred said "NO! ... All of my paintings are like children, and I cannot part with any of them!" At the time, john couldn't understand what Fred was talking about. Now that john has been painting a while, he DOES understand Fred's comment.
However, Fred went on to tell john that he would make john a great deal. He would paint one especially for the Fling! WOW!
Fred took about six months to paint "The Plaza Fountain, circa 1986". It is a 2' x 3' oil on canvas:
When john and joyce went out to Fred and Jane's house to pick up the painting, Fred gave john and joyce a tour of their home. It is covered in Fred's paintings http://home.everestkc.net/jz/fred_broski . They are beautiful!
Fred gave john and joyce a tour of his studio, and during that time he made the comment: "John if you ever would like to learn how to paint ..." Before Fred could finish, john said: "YES!"
Fred loaned john a number of books. One is particularly outstanding: "Alla Prima" by Richard Schmid. It is an EXCELLENT book! john finally bought a copy of his own. It is worth the price if you can find it (john's copy was $109 on Amazon.com).
The rest was just trying out new techniques. john likes acrylics because they do dry so fast. That way you get to paint over your mistakes in 15 minutes. john's first painting has about 5 layers underneath!
john thinks some of his eye for painting has come from photography. He have been taking photos since he was 12 when his dad bought an inexpensive 35 mm SLR camera from Montgomery Wards. The highest speed film, at that time, was ASA 400 Tri-X black and white film.
Right now, in his computer, john has about 12,500 color photos, and those are just the most recent ones. While in Alaska for two years, john took a lot of 35 mm slides. They were mainly of mountains and the northern lights (while john was standing out in -30 degree weather, of course).
john is having fun painting, and he says that is all that counts. However, joyce is telling him not to start a new painting until some of the outdoor work gets done.