Oscar lee Walker

I was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, raised in the Appalachians just south of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. The public school system was adequate but offered nothing to an aspiring artist. My only early art training was a set of colored pencils and a watercolor set from Woolworth’s. I had some natural art talent because I was named the sixth-grade artist, but it was just monkey see monkey do. Nelson county high school was no better for art – no classes in any kind of art were offered so my claim to fame would be in sports, basketball, and track. I was just an average baller, a bit awkward from a big growth spurt up to 6’2”, but I found my niche on the track. There I became one of the best hurdlers in the state of Virginia, culminating in a gold medal in state finals my senior year. Art was relegated to my form clearing the hurdles. I do still have a watercolor painting of a running deer made in grade school. Actually, not bad, considering.

After graduating from Virginia Tech, I was selected for the US Army. Married and with a baby on the way, I joined the reserves at Radford, Virgina, and spent 2 years as a private before finally following my dream of becoming a pilot. Accepted into the USAF for pilot training, I was one out of 2000 applying, and then one out of two to make it through the year long training at Del Rio, Texas. I remember relaxing making sketches of the SW plains and Lake Armstead around the base, and a few paint by numbers, but nothing serious.

I flew several aircraft throughout my Air Force career, from fighters to heavy jets, from the final evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war to Desert Storm, the Iraq conflict. Again art was only sketches and paint by numbers.

I decided to explore my artistic talents because of my son, Travis. He had exploded onto the art scene in a high school art class, blowing everyone away with photo realist drawings. He went on to graduate VCU with a fine arts degree, continued to excel and is now one of the most recognized new artists in the profession. www.traviswalkerart.com www.tayloepiggottgallery.com  Where did the DNA come from? I decided to try my hand by getting books on everything I could on art- sketching, watercolor, acrylic, oil, and started into the world of art. 

The internet provided the art training classes that were never available to me in elementary and high school. Following tutorials by noted art instructors, I learned about perspectives in drawing, color theory, line, tone, value, chroma, composition. The more I learned, the more I realized how much I did not know. Art is a lifelong learning experience. My work now is a description of the many artistic expressions seen in the history of art – realism, impressionism to start. I am just beginning to discover the art that will define my work. I hope others can enjoy it just a little bit as much as I enjoy creating it.