Vernon Schaver, Fulton, IL, stood quietly beside his installation of nine watercolors along the front, east wall. He came late to art production, beginning in college with one painting and one wood carving course at Augustana College, Rock Island, IL. He found his passion and switched his major. At Augie he took an acrylic class with a visiting University of Iowa instructor, then switched to watercolors.
“I like the way it [the paint] flows.”
“I usually keep a camera in the car” to capture scenes to paint. “The white irises were in my wife’s garden. I like ‘old stuff,’ like the oil drums and rusted car body.” To create texture, he sprinkled salt on wet paint of the barrels. He uses a toothbrush to spatter tiny drops of paint or dabs it with tissue paper or plastic wrap.
A “friend has over 30 of [my] paintings. She gives them as gifts when she visits people.”
“The small ones around the Midwest sell better than big ones,” he noted.
Schaver taught art for 14 years at Riverbend School District (Fulton, Garden Plain, and Albany, IL); he retired from teaching in 1994 and then worked 20 years as a carpenter. “I do everything by hand; I don’t use power tools.”
He creates wood carvings, too, like the Bluejay. The front, east window contains a small dog with a big bone. The third piece, showing several baby raccoons peeking from a hole in a tree, has been sold. It was a gift for Volunteer Coordinator Sandra Crouse.
He recycles picture frames for his paintings and built the large one that binds his train scene on the floor. Schaver also makes the double mats for his works.
“It keeps [me] occupied, and [I’m] always looking for something,” he explained. The former art teacher is still an art student. “I read a lot and try something someone did or a color combination.”
