EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 15 © 2016 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

48 Text continues on page 52 compositions. This also implies that though there is a great amount of research done when the painting has a historical background, Andy, however, doesn’t “pose” models on their horses galloping full speed down a dustyWestern street so that he can capture the “instant” he needs for his paintings. All this comes from Andy’s fertile imagination, and painted assuredly and expertly with his hand. Although on occasion when he needs to see how a person is positioned at a certain angle, he will use either himself or his wife Dina, and take a snapshot as reference. As Dina says: “When Andy was painting the Civil War battle scenes of Fort Donelson and Stones River, I posed as many of the soldiers because I am about the same size as those young men.” To make a living through the art shows around the country, Dina took over the financial aspect of the business (selling the artwork), while Andy did the paintings. Depending on the show they would attend, Andy would prepare a series of paintings. “During the early years of marketing my paintings, I would FACING PAGE: A cowboy drifter takes a horse, based on a passage from the semi-autobiographical book Lone Cowboy by Will James. RIGHT: George Catlin painting Four Bears , shows the legendary Western painter doing the portrait of Ma-to-toh-pe (from mato “bear” and tope “four”) the second chief of the Mandan tribe known to white men by this name. BELOW: Pulling up shows a more sketchy aspect in Andy’s work.