When John Groesser travels, he comes back with his own souvenirs.
Since retiring from PCS Phosphate in Aurora about three years ago, he has traveled to Nicaragua, Brazil and three times to Beliz. He took canvas and paint with him every time.
He spent 10 days rafting and camping on the Colorado River, painting 20 scenes of the Grand Canyon along the way.
Groesser called that one a bucket-list trip, just one more way he has enjoyed retirement.
“I’m having the time of my life,” he said. “Work got in the way.”
He retired after putting in 36 years at PCS. He started painting about seven years before retirement, but he could almost count the number of paintings he did in a year on one hand.
Groesser is a plein-air artist (he paints on location) and would not even consider painting from a photograph.
“You don’t really get the quality,” Groesser said. “I think you see it differently in person. You get the whole experience, smelling it, touching it.”
He enjoys painting in the open air outdoors and finds it a challenge to create a piece of art before the sun sets, weather changes or bugs settle on his canvas.
“My office is the whole outdoors,” he said.
The mood to paint once struck Groesser while he had only a tube of blue paint and a tube of white paint. The colors were quickly manipulated into the two boats docked before him.
He sat behind the counter of the River Walk Gallery and Art Center on Thursday, staring at a series of a man golfing in purple hues. Groesser wondered aloud where the paintings would end up.
Groesser’s work is impressionistic. He paints familiar scenes, lighthouses and churches with broad, confident strokes.
“I paint without giving a lot of detail,” he said. “I hope they can finish the scene in their mind.”
The hardest part of painting for him is knowing when the work is complete. And the thrill is seeing what he has done in a day, without work getting in the way.
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Groesser’s work may be found at River Walk Gallery and Arts Center in downtown Washington. For more information, call 974-0400 or visit his website at www.johnanddodigroesser.