Thomas Schroeder, Artist
Tom grew up surrounded by marshes, lakes and farmlands in rural southern Minnesota. “I learned the patterns of nature, walking among cattails along waterways, beneath the big skies, and rural landscapes of plowed fields and waves of crops”. The landscape that features the call of a red-winged blackbird, became a hotbed of waterfowl/wildlife artists, such as Dave Maass, Jim Killen and Tom’s neighbor, Dick Plasschaert. Dick won the prestigious Federal Duck Stamp painting competition. “Seeing his studio as a kid, I got to see where the magic happened and that’s all it took to inspire me for life“. Tom developed an interest in capturing the beauty of our natural surroundings at an early age. He began painting acrylic waterfowl landscapes.
He moved to Ohio to study architecture at the University of Cincinnati. His architectural training instilled in him a strong base in classic compositional skills. He also developed an expertise in drawing in perspective through his architectural illustration work.
He is self-taught in various media, ultimately concentrating in watercolor over the past 20 years. Watercolor allows him to work with suggestive washes of undefined colors and tones in the backgrounds and areas of his pieces, only to follow up with dry brush details and textures. His interpretation of his subjects employs a wide range of values and color saturations to create interest in his paintings. Tom likes to prep each image by exploring composition, value and interest in small sketches and color studies.
Tom has developed his painting interest into a few themes of subject types. In each of these, he tries to tell a story of the subject in their context and environment. His travels through northern Ohio took him through many Amish landscapes, which became the subject for a number of paintings. Another of his themes feature scenes of natural landscapes, many with waterways. Living in Cincinnati exposed Tom to rich German red brick urban cityscapes and human stories as another theme in his work. Finally, he found rich textures and shapes in the wreckage of machines and vehicles in the local junkyards.
Artist Statement
“It is with this foundation, that I search my world looking for stories to tell about how we live now or in past times. I am attracted to older pieces and parts of this world that may have outlived their usefulness yet still have a story. I paint the old, the worn out and the forgotten, things that may not be beautiful to others. I seek out stories that no one else will tell.”
