My Origin Story as a Visual Artist.
I had a good career as an advertising copywriter, writing for TV, video, digital, radio, print, outdoor, and doing my best to avoid direct mail.
One vacation—on a whim—I bought a sketch pad at a shop on Sanibel Island, Florida.
The pad sat on my desk for years.
Then one day my good friend Dave offered to loan my wife and me a large painting his daughter had created, and we had long admired. We accepted and hung the artwork in our living room.
After a few days, I announced to my wife and our three dogs: “I’d like to try something like that.”
Naive? Arrogant? Foolhardy? Sometimes a huge challenge requires all three.
And so I got out the drawing pad, watched a few “how-to” videos, read some art books (looked at the pictures, and I turned the pages), got tips from real artists—and dove in.
That was the fall of 2022.
Since then I’ve drawn dozens upon dozens of portraits of friends, family, the famous and the infamous. I work mostly in ink, with a bit of pencil and watercolor. But I have yet to try something as ambitious as that big beautiful canvas that still hangs in our home.
I know my limitations, including a shallow well of patience and a deep desire to avoid formal training with its assignments and deadlines.
But I also know my key strength—the ability to economically capture human likeness and attitude—which I lean into whenever I draw an interesting face. Maybe yours will be next.
Thanks for reading. Please have a look at the “Portraits” section if you haven’t already.
This is the face of a man who has more than once heard, “You have a gift for drawing.” My usual response is to say “thank you” and move the conversation forward. But the truth is I do not have a gift for drawing. My gift, if I have one, is my desire. It’s a strong one, an enduring one. I don’t know its origin. But this desire insists that I apply myself to drawing portraits. These portraits create connections to both friends and strangers in ways that are often highly rewarding. For that, I’m grateful.
—Lee Harrison Schmidt, Wisconsin, USA
Photo credit: Molly Jane Layden, October 2024