I am Bob Wilson (Robert S. Wilson) born April 1, 1943. My artistic talents began to show early in school years, and included taking art classes in junior high school. Unfortunately I was not encouraged to follow my talents by taking art in high school. After beginning a career in Santa Rosa, California, working in the printing department of a local company designing catalogs and other promotional graphics, I took some graphic arts classes at Santa Rosa Junior College. Later I began trying out painting in acrylics, using them to create paintings that looked like oil paintings. I bought books on painting that showed the step-by-step process of creating a painting and pretty much taught myself to paint. Soon I had finished three or four paintings. I was encouraged by a close friend and my wife to expand and use my talent and in the process found I had an interest in nautical subjects. As I gained a gallery of paintings, my wife decided my work was good enough that I should be able to sell some of them. She hung several at the business where she was working and almost immediately they started selling. I painted all kinds of subjects among them a ship (I still have this painting hanging in my home). I took the ship painting to my job and from people seeing it, was commissioned to paint four more of this subject. Later a woman commissioned me to paint the painting at the top of this page. In 1972 I moved my family to Boise, Idaho, and because of lack of available storage, sold most of the paintings I had at that time. After moving to Boise and being strapped trying to raise my family, I hardly painted at all. From time to time I painted pictures for family Christmas presents or for decoration in our home. But I never got going in it again until 2003 when I retired. I started taking art lessons from Will Nelson, a very well trained and talented artist, and began mainly creating paintings of sailboats and ships, but also have interest in other subjects.
About Bob
