“Work I’d always hoped to get is now coming in, after 40 years in the business”: first impressions with painter Greg Manchess

I grew up in northern Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati, so I was quite close to the Cincinnati Art Museum where my long-dead mentor, Frank Duveneck, taught art classes. I was immediately influenced by his work when I stumbled on it at about 19 years old. His work has affected my oil painting technique ever since.

I learned how to understand painting from my years studying the martial arts. I was a personal student of Stephen K. Hayes, who had travelled to Japan in 1975 to train under one of the last surviving members of a line of ninja families. The way that Stephen taught such complex concepts of moving stealthily by breaking them down into simple components helped me to understand how I was doing a similar thing when teaching myself to paint.

Training physically helped me understand the mental training necessary for creating art. A fight is a creative process, and one learns how to survive by focused training of the basics that can then be used in multiple, creative ways, from moment to moment, like in art.

It was a study by Duveneck of some hands and faces of two men. The brushwork knocked me out. I’ve never forgotten the moment that I realised it was everything I wanted to learn about oil painting.

I started out on very low-paying jobs that basically have little to do with my current abilities. But I did get one assignment that explosively changed everything for my painting approach.

I made a painting for an ad my agent and I showed, and National Geographic saw it and asked me to do a painting like it of the Civil War naval scene for the magazine.

I remember when I started the final piece, I made the pigment perform exactly the way I wanted to push my technique: in a painterly manner with broad, flat strokes. It changed the way I painted everything thereafter.

The last piece coming off the table is for a special limited edition of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It’s very far removed from my early work in that I understand value and shape so much better now.

I would tell myself to draw more. Even though I drew all the time, I would have told myself to memorise visuals more; pay minute attention to details so that they become ingrained and second nature to capture. I would have drawn more horses earlier on, more animals, and especially more people.

I would have told myself to trust the process of learning and that the more I got good at the basics of drawing, the better I would be sooner than later at painting. Even drawing is better training for learning to paint.

Painting is really just drawing with colour anyway. I would have told myself to be patient and let the hard-won process of training guide me, and to not get confused by what others might have thought or suggested. And I would have told myself to trust my instincts sooner, but as monitors to my learning, the way an Olympic athlete trains.

I wrote and illustrated a widescreen novel, Above the Timberline, and I identify with the lead character, a 19-year-old boy named Wesley. He’s searching for his lost explorer father and sets out to find him against all odds.

I lost my father when I was 22, just when I was becoming more of a man and able to share experiences with him, and learn from his life. I suppose I’ve been trying to find and recover that relationship ever since. But it also represents my struggle to get better at painting.

Making a living as a freelance illustrator and painter isn’t quite what I’d hoped it might be, but I made it into what I wanted. Funny that far into my career, now the best jobs are showing up! Work that I’d always hoped I could get is now coming in, after 40-plus years in the business. But at least I’m prepared and still very much excited to do it!

The illustration industry has been fascinating to watch over the years. I managed to stay in tune with it while not being the hottest new thing around and just kept painting while paying attention to new trends and interests.

I believe that computer art has contributed wildly to the art, in a very good way. It has improved peoples’ access to materials and styles by being readily available to experiment with. One can make tremendous mistakes digitally without the overwhelming feeling of disaster one might feel when working traditionally.

I started out wanting to be a digital artist, back when no one but the computer scientists were developing it, but I loved the feel of the oil paint too much, so I let the computer gather dust in the corner. I wish I’d have kept at it early on.

I’m driven to make more of my own paintings for painting’s sake. I like to work with clients and being part of a small team creating interesting visuals that also communicate, but I want to do that for the gallery setting now. It’s long overdue.

I also want to write more of my visual stories, work in film and develop my writing concepts, from children’s books through to novels and screenplays. Sculpture is next! And teaching more accurately to help young artists along.