Software allows painter to pack away brushes

CHARLESTON, Ill. -- The painting shows a jungle scene, and the vividly colored parrot is the first thing to catch the viewer's eye.

Soon, though, what first might have looked like rocks and vines come into focus as a wheel, a wing and other wreckage from an airplane crash. Walt Chandlee, the painting's creator, calls it "Amelia."

A lot of Chandlee's paintings get the viewer thinking, and this one makes the 1937 plane crash of aviator Amelia Earhart somewhere in the Pacific Ocean come to mind.

"Everything's a story," Chandlee said. "Most of my pictures have a story."

Chandlee's own story includes time creating pictures with paints and canvas. Now, though, he creates his works on his laptop computer, something he says he doesn't like, but feels he has to do.

"I don't call myself computer literate," the 80-year-old Charleston man said. "A computer is both easier and harder."

His disdain for the technology aside, Chandlee explains how his computer program lets him pick a brush size, paint color and color intensity before he sets his mouse to his screen in a way he would put brush to canvas.

"You can't just say you want a picture of a car and push a few buttons," he said.

Also in his collection are two different paintings of basically the same image: a forlorn-looking shack next to some railroad tracks. But Chandlee's savvy enough with his laptop to use a feature that inverts the colors, turning it to a nighttime scene to which he added some Christmas lights to make it "look sort of warm."

He laughed when asked how many computer-generated paintings he's done, saying it's probably 200 to 300, finishing two or three each week. He said he has spent five to six hours a day most days with it, starting about three years ago.

"It gives me something to do," he said.

He switched from paint and canvas after his brother told him "you're out of it" when it came to the convenience of modern technology, and he found out about the painting programs available when a neighbor, Heather Seaton, was teaching him the basics.

A 30-year-old acrylic painting of some shrimp boats hangs on the wall of his living room, while there's a new, computer-painted version of the same scene in a photo album on his coffee table.

"It probably took me two days to do that," he said, pointing to the wall hanging, then explaining that the computer version took "a couple of hours."

Chandlee said the inspiration for his paintings comes from childhood memories, poems, songs, politics, scenery, people and shows he sees on TV. A cigarette smoker, he recently completed a painting of a New Year's Eve party with ash trays and called it "The End of an Era," a comment on the state's public smoking ban that went into effect Jan. 1.

The Model A Ford that Chandlee had years ago shows up in several of his paintings, as do scenes of fishing and of the city of Chicago, where he once lived. A street with umbrella-carrying pedestrians passing by a car with Georgia license plates led him to say he didn't think anyone could guess what it represented, only to hear a reply that it must be the song "Rainy Night in Georgia."

His reaction couldn't hide his surprise.