Ken DeWaard
Viroqua, Wisconsin
 

Ken DeWaard is an outdoors guy. It’s the light. He loves painting en plein air, the French term for “in the open air,” because of the how natural light illuminates what he sees.

DeWaard, creator of the oil painting of the first Driftless Area Art Festival back in 2005 that adorns the home page of its website, waxes lyrical about painting under an open sky, where he is “surrounded by the scents and sounds of nature, along with it's ever changing color and harmonies.”

The effect, he says,” excites one's creativity,” as painting from a photograph cannot

DeWaard moved to the Driftless Area six years ago, but has been painting in it much longer. He became attracted to the area while on road trips from the Chicago area, where he grew up, to the Twin Cities, home of his wife’s family.

The discovery inspired him to stop, at times, and paint scenes that caught his eye. And, as they say, one thing led to another. Ken and the former Kate Ross bought a farm west of Viroqua which they now share with their four children, Ross, 11; Miae, 9;  Tysen, 7;  Westen, 4, and three horses.

But DeWaard does a lot more than putter in the pastures around his studio in a barn behind his home. He teaches, gives workshops and, indulging his love of competition, regularly enters Plein Air festivals, which often include “paint offs” and “quick draws,” competitions designed to test artists’ skills and their ability to perform under time pressure.

DeWaard believes that kind of pressure helps him grow as an artist, as does the simple pleasure of painting in company with others, whether they are other professionals or students.

He paints weekly with area artists – outdoors, of course, in good weather and in studio with models in the winter. He is a adjunct instructor at the Kewaunee Academy of Fine Art as well as the Scottsdale Artists’ School and conducts regular workshops. He has painted throughout the United States and in Europe, especially in Italy.

His urge to compete, like his love of art, came early. He credits his parents for inspiring his early interest in drawing in his hometown of Glenwood, Ill. That interest developed in tandem with his love for basketball. He played through his high schools years and into college, but even at six foot-five inches, found he did not have the height, “or the ability,” he says, to play at any level beyond that.

At any rate, he recalls with a smile, his teammates did not believe that a love of art and of basketball were particularly compatible. How does his height affect his art? Only mechanically, he says. He either modifes the easels he uses so that his canvases are at a comfortable height or he works in a slight crouch. “I want to make sure I’m not missing something in my perspective of a scene.”

DeWaard says he was inspired early by the work of John Singer Sargent, Nicolai Fechin, Joaquin Sorolla and the Russian Impressionists. Among his contemporaries, DeWaard gives special recognition to Dan Garhartz, Scott Burdick and Tim Bell, not only for their obvious talent but for their ability to blend their work into lifestyles that he admires.

The artist is an honors graduate of Western Illinois university. He studied also at the American Academy of Art with Irvin Shapiro, then joined the acclaimed Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Art in Chicago, where he studied with Scott Burdick and Dan Gerhartz.

Life is busy for Ken DeWaard, balancing his roles as husband, father, farm owner, traveling teacher, artist and self-promoter. The world of fine arts makes many demands of artists, including a talent for business, he notes, and he takes pride in meeting those challenges too.

Ken DeWaard Fine Art
www.kendewaard.com

Interview by Brad Niemcek
Photos courtesy of Ken DeWaard