Al Moore

      I am just an old country boy who grew up during the depression when it was a simpler time.  I never dreamed of being an artist or even knew of any one who claimed to be one.  Sometimes when I see the variety of people who are called "artist" today I just say that I am a landscape painter.

     After a time in the Air Force during World War II, I attended Texas Tech and got a degree in Commercial Art.  I realized later that I studied under the "Old School" of instruction which had you drawing for hours from plaster casts, from life, painting plein air, and doing architectural types of perspective drawings.  Some of it was dull, but you did learn things tha helped you later.

     While going to Tech I also worked part time in the Tech Museum where I got to do a lot of fun things such

as preparing dioramas of early life on the South Plains.  I also did smaller paintings of scenes of Indian life in the region.  After leaving Tech I went into advertising doing ads and displays for a grocery chain.  I moved back to Temple and worked in the advertising department of the Temple Telegram for seven years as artist.  I also did freelance art and operated Moore Advertising Agency doing national advertising for several local firms.  Next I went to work for Training Aids at Fort Hood as Supervisor-Illustrator of the Graphics Division.  I worked there for twenty- four years.

     Since leaving Fort Hood I have devoted my time to mostly painting landscapes.  While landscapes have been my first love, I will try to paint any scene that I am fascinated with and it seems to just say "paint me".  To broaden my understanding of the painting process I have taken numerous workshops from nationally known painters.  The ones that have inspired me the most were the ones that I have taken from Bob Wygant.  Not only did he inspire me, but we became good friends and have painted together many times since.  It was he who got me to painting almost exclusively in acrylic paints and painting hill country type scenes with its hills, rocks and clear running water.

     I like to say that I try to paint what I see and not what I think I see.  So I guess you would label me as a realist painter who is trying to paint in a style that is more impressionistic.  I try to get the simplest shapes and masses, then add just enough detail so that the viewer fills in the rest.  I believe that artists of the past have proven certain art basics and we do well to learn and use them.  Such basics as drawing, design, color, values, edges and mood are still important elements in making a good painting.  Today I paint because I need to.  Painting is not a job but a talent or ability to observe the wonders of His creation and to create in a human way a picture of what I see.  I paint the subjects that inspires me, not because I think that they will sell or be popular.  I paint what I like and trust that the painting will be a better painting because of it.  Don't get me wrong but selling a painting makes more paintings possible,  I feel honored, thankful, and a little amazed when someone thinks enough of one of my paintings to pay out hard earned money so they may own it.

     I paint   in my studio near Belton, Texas .