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JL Vaden Art Collections

Shop for artwork from JL Vaden based on themed collections. Each image may be purchased as a canvas print, framed print, metal print, and more! Every purchase comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Artwork by JL Vaden

Each image may be purchased as a canvas print, framed print, metal print, and more! Every purchase comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

About JL Vaden

JL Vaden Precision in a Watercolor World
Defying his medium's penchant for diffusion and softness, Jerome drives his watercolors into hard, clear, clean lines and planes of color. This self-taught artist works with precision to render dramatic compositions, street scenes and portraits that capture the whole of humanity- all races living in harmony. Mr. Vaden is an idealist. He is also an ex-Aerospace Engineer. The art world has its own prejudices, but Vaden has never let those limitations block him. As a child, he taught himself to draw, sometimes staying up well into the night recreating all he had seen during the day. His only experience in an art class taught him about contemporary biases in art, but abstraction was not his thing. He dropped the class and took to studying on his own. He still does. He spends part of every work day doing research in the arts, particularly old and modern masters, their lives and techniques.
Vaden left a stable position at Lockheed-Martin to pursue his art and art instruction full time. He'd become an engineer because his father wanted him to get a real job, but he kept drawing and experimenting with different forms until, with the full support of his wife, made the leap into the art world. I was painting for myself and didn't care who saw my work. If you paint for money, you fail, he says. Paint for yourself and from your soul and be your own worst critic. Coming as he does from a family of artist, educators, actors and musicians, the discipline of 10 to 12 hours a day in the studio is natural and pleasant for him. But the engineering profession has also contributed to his art: In some cases, he actually used engineering techniques in his drawings. He prefers watercolor to oil and acrylic because watercolor a more exacting. You can paint over a mistake in oil. But in watercolor, what you put down is what you get. So you have to plan each step. I sketch out each piece, working sometimes on 10 pieces at the same time. It takes months to complete one. He describes his images as suspended in time. I try to capture a person or place in time, and freeze it there, down to the exact second, I can tell where the sun was in the sky. He points out that moment he captured in Katy was the exact moment when jazz/blues singer Katy Webster hit a particular note. Exactness of detail is important to him, but so is the spirit within. He paints the precise action, but he also paints his memories and experience of music (in the portraits of jazz musicians) or his hopes and dreams (in his street scenes). The street scenes like The Premiere, Down to the Nightclub, and In the Open Air, bustle with life. Some people are beautifully dressed, others plainly. Blacks and whites inhabit the same space freely and easily.
Dignity matters. So does music.

Marilynne S. Mason Staff writer of the Christian Science Monitor