Robert's Artwork: How It Came To Be

This blog post was submitted by Gary Stebick.

Recently I was at Foothills Group Home taking a photo of one of the staff members for a newsletter article about an award she received.  When I was leaving, Robert, one of the residents of the home, was near the front door and politely asked if there was anything he could do to be in the Imagine! newsletter. I told him I was certain there was, and asked him what his interests are. He mentioned art, and said he had a picture in his bedroom that he drew in high school that I might be interested in seeing.

Robert proceeded to show me the art and told me the process of how he decided what to draw in the picture. Robert‘s art teacher at Jefferson High School suggested that Robert find some pictures that he liked in magazines and use them for models for different parts of his art. Robert started by choosing to draw the picture with charcoal and pencil. He saw a picture of mountains that he liked, so mountains was the first thing he drew. Then he drew the large ship, fashioned after a large ship he saw in a photo. Then he found a photo of a man in a rowboat which he liked so he drew a man in a rowboat next. As he continued looking through magazines, he saw a picture of a helicopter and decided to put a helicopter into his drawing. Finally, since there were two ships in the picture he added the ocean, and that’s how he came to draw this wonderful piece of art.

Robert’s interest in art began when he was a child drawing in coloring books. Navy blue is his favorite color, followed by red and orange. Animals are his favorite thing to draw. When asked what he likes to do, Robert replied, “I like to help people, that's my favorite thing to do.”

The piece of art shown here has sentimental value to Robert. He wrapped the picture and gave it to his grandfather as a present.  Unfortunately his grandfather died unexpectedly soon afterwards. Robert’s grandmother knew the artwork was special to Robert and she returned it to him to serve as a reminder of his grandfather, a former Marine whose picture hangs on Robert’s wall near his artwork.