Capturing history with a paintbrush

The Baltimore Sun

It's a very tough thing to make a living at. If I hadn't gotten into computers, I'd be a starving artist," said Gary Peddicord, a popular Howard County-based artist who loves to paint historic sites in Elkridge such as Wesley Grove United Methodist Church, the Thomas Viaduct and the Brumbaugh House.

Peddicord has earned his living since 1985 as a senior graphics designer, using computers in his work with the defense-contracting industry. Living with his wife, Linda, in the oldest townhouse development in Elkridge, where his ancestors settled in the early 1700s, he has had a front-row seat as subtle changes came to historical buildings.

Located off U.S. 1 near BWI Marshall Airport and the hilly byways of the oldest settlement in Howard County, the historic town of Elkridge is changing.

Now that vinyl siding is going on some of the oldest houses in the town and others are being torn down, the contrast between the horse-and-buggy age and the computer age is becoming more evident in the town.

Peddicord paints solitary images of buildings like old stone barns. He paints in a realistic style, using careful line work and pastel watercolors to capture the spirit of the buildings. His work is on display at some historic sites that are open to the public.

In 1971, he painted a large mural, measuring 5 feet by 10 feet, of Ellicott City. It is now displayed in Mount Hebron House, a historical show house. Mount Hebron Presbyterian Church owns the building.

Another painting shows the Patuxent River viaduct in winter, an arching bridge that links Baltimore and Howard counties, with sky and ground lending a peaceful quality.

Peddicord said he keeps his painting style "tight."

"The true watercolorists paint differently, because they do it where there's very little drawing."

Peddicord said what he does is half illustration and half painting.

"That's because if it was just painting [in watercolor] you wouldn't see the sharpness, but when you do [paint in] watercolor - I've seen them do it, and I've taken some classes - they do a really faint line. And, they take and mix the colors, they puddle it up, and that's true watercolor. And that becomes impressionistic. It's good, and I really appreciate it, but I just don't think that way."

"I mix it up a little bit," he said, saying he adds tempera when the watercolor needs some emphasis on the edge of a stone wall or roof. His 2006 painting of the Scottish Rite Temple, 3800 N. Charles St., measuring 29 feet by 23 feet, was painted in watercolor. It is on display at the temple.

Peddicord's 2006 painting of the Brumbaugh House in Elkridge shows a stately old building surrounded with other, less permanent-looking buildings.

"I use the artist's license: you put in and take out what you want," he said, noting that all his paintings have three flying birds in the sky - his "trademark."

The Brumbaugh House painting has a personal connection to the Peddicord family.

The owner of the house, a Dr. Brumbaugh, was a physician in Elkridge who used to travel to Ellicott City to treat families, Peddicord said. Gary and his two sisters grew up in the town, and Dr. Brumbaugh, who would take just $3 for a house call in those days, was their family doctor.

Peddicord gave the painting of his doctor's house to the county historical society.

Four barns were painted by Peddicord in the Mount Hebron area in January. Michael Fahey, owner of two of Peddicord's Mount Hebron works - depictions of an old stone barn and granary - said that the colors in the pictures go perfectly with the walls of his house. "I love stone buildings," said Fahey, whose house faces an open field and forest area.

Prints of Peddicord's work are available matted and framed for sale. One painting arose from need of the church that the Peddicords attend - Melville Methodist Church, which had an old roof needing replacement. Peddicord painted the building and produced prints to sell as a fundraiser. The matted prints sold for $20, and the proceeds went to the church's building fund.

Peddicord's great-grandfather was a founding member of Elkridge, and the brown shingled house - not yet a subject of a Peddicord painting - still stands as a reminder to the artist of his deep roots in the town. Another building that is yet to be painted the 1744 Elkridge Furnace Inn, scenic with Civil War fences

"There are so many buildings to be done in so little time," Peddicord said.

Peddicord worked with Louis Frisino, a co-worker at a former newspaper job and a painter of ducks, fish, dogs and waterfowl. He fine-tuned his draftsman skills watching Frisino paint.

"You have to do a very, very exacting drawing including shadows and everything. When Louis painted a fish, you could take that drawing he did, and photograph it and it would be a black and white to gray scale. He didn't leave anything to question when he put the brush down."

A fisherman himself, Peddicord decided to capture fish with his paintbrush instead of buying an expensive fly fishing reel. He sold out of 32 different fish paintings at a fly-fishing show at Towson University in 1991. Other commissions, such as a painting of an elephant - done on a real elephant ear - early in his career were different and less repeatable.

Even though Peddicord has made a substantial living working with computers in his job with a defense contractor, he is making a transition into painting again.

It was an adjustment to work with computers to create art.

"He absolutely hated it," said Linda Peddicord.

"Now I love to work with computers because it can enable you to do more," he said. But drawing is his first love.

"I began drawing ... around 6 years old. I remember drawing pictures as my family would be watching programs at home on our very small TV with rabbit ears," he said.

He is left-handed; a teacher once tried to change him but eventually gave up. He injured his left hand playing football for Howard High School and almost lost hope of becoming an artist. An art teacher persuaded him to focus on art and not take chances on the football field. The artist was on his way. After high school graduation in 1962, Peddicord attended his art studies at Le Millet Private Art School and graduated in 1965.

He also creates caricatures - half digital and half painted. They take six of seven hours to complete. Peddicord includes items from the subject's life to personalize the work.

Painting buildings such as the Scottish Rite Temple or the viaduct crossing over the Patuxent River have left his home studio almost permanently in disarray.

According to Peddicord, it is in the seeing where the artist can create a picture.

"Visualization is a gift that most artists have," Peddicord said.

"It's something that happens when the eye sees something and it's almost like a computer searching when I see something, and then things start to happen. ... I'll see the underside of [a] color; I'll see the underneath of it. ... I won't see the surface. In watercolors, what you are doing, you are basically painting in layers," he said.

"I think his work is very impressive. I can't say enough as to what I think of his work," said co-worker William Matlak. Peddicord did a caricature of Matlak standing by a lawn tractor with a family dog, and signs pointing to Grand Canyon, Alaska and Bermuda as a 60th birthday gift. It was a hit.

"Working with Gary over the years, if I needed something I could watch him do the work. Computers generate clip art. It's good enough," said Matlak. But the artist is irreplaceable is the consensus of Matlak and Peddicord's art teacher, founder of Le Millet Art Institute, Charles "Ed" Miller.

"Gary was one of my favorites; he was a very talented person. He was a designer," said Miller, 88, now retired after producing about 200 graduates from his accredited art school.

Miller trained people who became art directors throughout the city, placing all of his students in art-related jobs. Miller deplores the use of computers to replace the artist in advertising design in newspapers, magazines and television.

It was at Le Millet that Peddicord received the ad- and sign-making training that led to landing a job at the News American before graduating from the school. He worked first as an advertising artist, then account executive in sales, and then moved to Westinghouse as a designer.

"I think there are a lot of good artists out there. Some are not so good and some are middle of the road," Peddicord said. "But it all gets down to marketing, and I find that as a rule artists are the worst marketers in the world of their own service or the things that they make."

"I'm thinking of getting a Web site," said the artist.

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