ARMA, Kan. — For local retired attorney Rick Shaw, the enjoyment of drawing and painting began in elementary school when he started doodling pictures of Winston Churchill on an assignment.
“When I was a little kid, I was always drawing, and when we had something going in class, particularly in high school, like it’s a history paper and one time I had to write a paper on Winston Churchill,” said Shaw. “So I drew a picture of him in pencil. I’vestill got that and the teacher wrote on it ‘very good.’ ... One time when I was younger, we had something it was called ‘Casey at the Bat’ and that was just a kid's story and I drew that one and it was in color.”
He then took a break from drawing and attended the University of Kansas, where he stayed in one of the smaller dorms, developing a friendship with an art student who roomed right next to him.
“I found out he (Joe Isom) was an art student so he would go to class during the day but during the evening, he would draw and paint like this, using watercolors,” said Shaw. “I said ‘Can I watch it?’ He says ‘Yeah, sure’ and his roommate was also an art student ... So I sat over there a lot and watched him paint ... I didn’t do anything for a long time. When I got to law school, I thought ‘Maybe I could do something like that.’
“... When I got out of law school I just didn’t do much except somebody probably saw that (my painting) and said, ‘Why don’t you do some more?’ ... After I did one or two, they said, ‘Oh man, those are great, do some more’ and so I asked my dad ‘Do you like horses?’ and he said ‘yeah’ so I said that I’ll do these two horses for you so I did and he hung them up at home.”
Through July 15, the Arma City Library is displaying Shaw’s watercolors. Shaw’s 11 paintings depict cowboys, Native Americans, and western/midwestern landscapes, created in 1974, 1975, 1979, and 1982.
Shaw, a self-starter, offered advice to aspiring artists looking to make that leap without any formal training.
“I would say do small things,” he said. “... Draw a tree. Try to make a really pretty tree ... I would start them out by just pencil drawings. Find something in a magazine that they like, an object.”
Library activities
In addition to the display at the library, the staff have planned a packed schedule through the library’s summer reading program and general activities for children, teens, and adults.
The library’s summer reading program takes place from June 22 through Aug. 7, and includes a challenge of 10 or more books for children as well as 15 or more books for teens and adults. Prizes are to be given at the end of each book read with a grand prize of a bicycle.
Activities for children and teens are paint and plant (1 to 2:30 p.m., June 23 and June 30); friendship bracelets (1 to 2:30 p.m., June 24), dig for “fossils” and field day (1 to 2:30 p.m., July 7); bubbles, music, and chalk (1 to 2:30 p.m., July 8); circuit machine project (1 to 3 p.m., July 14 and July 15); painting for kids (1 to 2:30 p.m., July 21); painting for teens (1 to 2:30 p.m., July 22); science day (11 a.m. to 1 p.m./2 to 4 p.m., July 28); tie-dye t-shirts (1 to 3 p.m., July 29); and decorate tie-dye t-shirts with puff paint (1 to 3 p.m., Aug. 4).
Other activities for teens and adults planned for June through August include tai chi, quilting, cooking, sewing, family movie night, teen game night, and Yoga in the Park.
For more information, visit facebook.com/ArmaCityLibrary, call 620-347-4811, or go to the library at 508 E. Washington in downtown Arma.
This reporting is made possible, in part, by the Support Local Journalism Project Fund. Learn more at: southeastkansas.org/Localnews.
