Jake Gaedke
Like most landscape painters, Jake loves the outdoors and he grew up spending a great deal of time camping, fishing, hiking, and exploring. As a teenager of sixteen Jake’s parents allowed him to take the two-year Famous Artist Course for Young People, a correspondence art course that started him on a path of learning and discovery of the art world. A high school art teacher fresh out of college bellowed the fire inside of Jake through his passion, enthusiasm, and love for drawing, painting, and art history. His personal interest in learning and growing as an artist is something that has never left him. Unfortunately, other teachers and friends convinced Jake of the old stereotype that one cannot make a living as an artist and he took on other career paths including graphic design and advertising. It was still creative and offered a good paycheck, but it was fine art that really called to him. After years of struggling with his desire, Jake finally took classes from the famed illustrator Gene Hoffman at the University of Northern Colorado. They developed a close friendship and his mentoring and encouragement helped him grow closer to finally making the break as a full-time artist. He was able to do illustration work for a number of clients and advertising firms. Jake spent a lifetime drawing and painting the human figure on the side, but always wanted to learn to paint landscapes and the natural world that he was so close to. A plein air workshop with the landscape painter Jay Moore finally convinced him that this is what he wanted to do. He was hooked. Jake took two more workshops with Jay when he invited Jake to take his newly formed one-on-one mentorship program. After five grueling months of extremely hard work and study, Jake’s growth as an artist took a professional turn and he hasn’t looked back since. After years of painting landscape subjects, Jake’s interest turned to another passion he has had all his life in the form of seascapes. The ocean, with all its moods and mysteries, drew Jake into painting seascapes and has added it to his growing genre of the subject matter. After living in Colorado for thirty-five years, he relocated to Folsom, California where he now lives with his wife Janice. Being in Northern California allows Jake access to the ocean and also the nearby Sierra Mountains where he can paint and gather resource material at both locations. Painting from life challenges artists to concentrate every sensory nerve on the information in front of them. We absorb it all, from sight to sound and scent, from temperature to the atmosphere - we recreate the experience by channeling those feelings from head and heart to hand, through paint, onto paper and canvas.