Alberta artist Eldon Walls

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Eldon Walls

"I guess I´ve always drawn and painted ever since I can remember. Even during classes in school, I was the least attentive student, daydreaming about horses and drawing them into cartoons on the edges of my textbooks. Often the strict comments from my teacher would bring me back to reality, reluctantly of course. However, soon I would be back creating a cartoon of a horse jumping over a fence, which became crudely animated as I flipped the edges of the pages."

Eldon was born in 1933, in Ardenode Alberta, Canada, some 40 miles N.E. of Calgary, to Henry and Elizabeth Walls. In 1934 the family moved to a farm in the Nightingale area and as Eldon grew older it meant sharing, with three brothers and three sisters, the usual chores of milking cows, feeding pigs, and working the land. In those days the land work was done with horses, which were later replaced by a Massey Harris tractor, that never appealed to him as much. "My dad, being a tough horseman, was a big influence in my life, but I inherited my artistic talents from Mother, who always encouraged my artists goals, and still does today".

When Eldon was in his teens, his desire to go to Art College was strong, but the lack of money in those days made it impossible. So he became a ´self-taught´ artist. Eventually attending workshops of accomplished artists. His preference has always been working with oils on canvas, and painting horses into a landscape of the prairies and mountains where he was raised. Years spent in the ´sign business´ brought him closer to the world of art, murals and cartoon work.

Some notable murals, a 12ft x28ft ´Normandy Invasion´ done on an inside wall at the Strathmore Legion, and an 8ft x 50ft mural with caricatures of employees on an inside wall of Western RV in Leduc. Then again, at ´Western RV´ an 18ft.x12ft mural, all about hockey legend ´Wayne Gretzky´. I love doing caricatures, mostly from photographs, and work hard to achieve a strong ´comic likeness´, in good taste, of course. The enjoyment he gets from drawing cowboys and horses in comic situations shows in his cartoons printed in the "Alberta Crops and Beef," farm paper. The cowboy part of me, "limited", he says, came naturally while in my teens, getting around was done on horseback, and not in fancy cars..!

His oil paintings have been shown in many central and southern Alberta art shows as well as in various art galleries, in Strathmore, LaFlamme Galleries in Calgary, and Heritage Center in Cochrane.

More recently, and I am very greatful, a recent cartoon of mine was chosen by the people at the "Leanin´ Tree Greeting Cards", Boulder Co., to be an addition to their Christmas card collection this year ´2000, Here´s hoping for more..!

Check out my NEW WEBSITE!

Click on a picture for a larger image

Eldon Walls Gallery
P.O. Box 934
Bowden, Alberta, T0M 0K0
Phone: (403) 224-3106 Fax (403) 224-3106
E-mail: eldon@eldonwalls.com Web: www.eldonwalls.com

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