~Randy Saffle              

Artist Statement

  I was born in a Small town in Texas and grew up with screened doors, window air conditioners and horny toads. I learned to value my faith, family and a strong work ethic. My family never went on a vacation and I was thirty-two before I ever visited another state.

 My father grew up in a cemetery and kept it mowed with a push mower and knew how to use a switch when needed. My Mother was the youngest of twelve children and picked cotton for a living and made due with limited means.

 Growing up I valued my time not working and would get lost in my imagination and enjoyed putting pencil to paper. These art skills eventually lead to a job in a sign company where I worked "  off the clock" to prove those skills and earn my opportunity to move into the art department and eventually worked my way up into an Art Director position. It's no surprise that I still live in Texas today, less than one-hundred miles from my hometown. My pencil has been replaced with a paint brush, but my subjects have remained the same.

  I paint what I know…Rural Texas and I love to paint outdoors directly from nature. Painting outside is unpredictable and the energy from 'discovering' a subject comes through the paint. I’m quickly becoming known for my rustic tractors and trucks, but my newer work is going beyond these subjects and into more of a 'story teller' mode. These places, these objects each contain their own stories and invite the viewer to step into them, digging up their own memories.

  Recently, I was juried into the prestigious, Oil Painter's of America National Exhibition and was voted into Vice President status of the Outdoor Painters Society. I am blessed to have surrounded myself with so many great artists and friends within those two groups and my skills are growing in leaps and bounds from that.
It's amazing fun.

Biography

Texas native, Randy Saffle is an award winning oil painter with a diverse artistic background. Nearing thirty years working as an Illustrator designing everything from logos and signage to designing toys, illustrating children’s books and comics, but it is fine art and painting outdoors that he finds most exhilarating. A 'painter's painter', recognition for his work is coming quickly, and he has won numerous awards and honors including being juried into the prestigious Oil Painters of America 22nd National Exhibition of Traditional Oils  where he earned the coveted "red dot".

Randy has studied with several nationally known artists including Marc Hanson, John Budicin, Jill Carver, Rusty Jones and Kaye Franklin and is becoming an in demand teacher and demo artist himself.

Randy lives in Grapevine, TX with wife, Sonjia and two sons, Eric and Noah