Van Rossmann Illustration

At age 10 I decided to draw for a living. Why didn’t I pick engineering or something that paid more? Guess it was in my blood so I can’t complain. I drew football players at that age and already had an interest in capturing the human body in different poses. My first award was getting one of my pictures hung on the wall in Mrs Fetz’s class as an example of class performance for parent night. It was a picture of a dragster. Heavily influenced by Ed “Big Daddy” Roth at that time. Wasn’t everyone?

I continued to draw for “fun” but never took it seriously like I thought I would. High School had art and drafting classes but I spent a good deal more time playing with pottery and learning to use rapidographs. Probably my best known work was the pen cleaning sheet that protected my drafting work. I had spent a semester doodling on it during class.

I started taking art classes in College. Drawing basics and figure drawing (with Will Collier), Sculpture, Scientific Illustration, etc. In the meantime I continued studying the Masters and got heavily into Frank Frazetta if you can believe it. At SRJC I took an Anthropology class and after seeing a movie on a dig I decided to become an illustrator specializing in artifact drawing. Quite the strange goal, but it fit with my love of drawing and my interest in history/archaeology.

I started Van Rossmann Illustration in 1976 while a student working occasionally as a dig bum with the Anthropology Laboratory at Sonoma State University.  I’ve kept the business going as a spare time effort ever since. I worked for HP for 23 years in manufacturing while producing artifact drawings, commercial art,  portraits, house portraits for Real Estate, logos, cartooning, charicatures, stage scenery, greeting cards etc. on nights and weekends.  I’ve spent the greater part doing pencil and pen and ink work but have branched out into, watercolor, oil, acrylic, inkjet, and computer graphics.

I am currently working on artifact drawings, report graphics, house portraits, and playing with oil portraits, historic reconstructions, and learning to carve at the Albany Brass Ring Project. Oh yeah, and I’m rennovating an 1875(?) Vernacular Victorian Farm House.