While many artists find watercolor the most difficult medium, Darlene Hayes finds it the easiest.
“I like it because it’s fast. It’s exciting,” she says. “And because you never really know exactly what it’s going to do.”
Visitors to the numerous art shows in The Villages are familiar with her soft watercolors. Darlene’s fascination with art has been an off- and on-again affair.
“In first or second grade, when the teachers would have us draw things, they would say ‘Oh, Darlene, yours are so good,’” she says. “So, I’ve kind of been drawing all of my life.
But I’ve never had a career doing anything artistic.”
During high school, she worked in a restaurant, typing out the daily menu and running it off on a mimeo machine. But it hardly qualified as “art.”
As a high school senior, she was hired to be the legal secretary for Minnesota State Sen. Claude Allen in her native city of St. Paul.
“It was the toughest job of my whole life,” Darlene recalls. “We did stenography, no dictating machines, and lots of the terms were in Latin.”
After an early marriage and three children in four years, Darlene felt that she needed to get out of the house a bit.
“So, I started taking some oil painting classes at night,” she says.
She was a natural and completed a series of large oil paintings, one of which she still has.
“It sat around in attics for years, but I just couldn’t part with it,” she says, adding that it now hangs in her home in the Village of Bridgeport at Lake Shore Cottages.
One of the upsides of marriage was that she settled in San Diego.
“I always told my mother I hated cold weather. Someday I’m moving,” she says, adding that the rest of her siblings – five brothers – all stayed in Minnesota.
Darlene grew up on a small farm just outside St. Paul. Her brothers and mother ran the farm except on weekends, and her father was a printer at a company that printed calendars for many clients across the country.
“The six kids would work all summer long with the garden. And then on Saturdays I would go to the market with my Dad,” she says. “I loved hanging out with him at the market. We even had our picture in the paper one time.”
“My older brothers were very protective of me,” she laughs. “If I had a date, they would follow me, but I didn’t know it at the time.”
She met her husband, Jack, at the Exchange at the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot in San Diego.
“I was divorced and working as a beauty consultant,” she says.
Jack, a business consultant on a Marine Corps contract, invited her to meet him at his hotel bar for a drink.
“I thought, ‘I don’t know. What am I doing? I don’t know this guy,’” she says.
So, she convinced a friend to accompany her.
“We met and had a good time,” she says.
Eventually, Darlene moved to New York, they married, and she spent 30 years working as an accountant and part-time poster designer for Jack’s company.
In 1996, they moved to Harbor Hills and Darlene’s art took a back seat to golf.
“I always wanted to get back to artwork and in 2013 we moved to The Villages,” she said.
After reading about an art show, she says she had to check it out. She met several prominent art teachers who invited her to their classes. First a drawing class, then colored pencil and on into watercolor – her favorite medium.
Her art output is prolific, averaging two to three paintings a week.
“I’m in all of the art shows possible,” she says. “Otherwise, the house would be cluttered full of art.”
At a good show, she will sell 20 to 30 pieces. Darlene sells only originals – no prints. She will be at the annual Spanish Springs Art & Craft Festival on Saturday, Feb. 8.
Darlene also accepts commissions and usually has several under way at any given moment. Her subjects come with her moods.
“I’ll do landscapes for a while, then I’ll see something on the internet or in a magazine and I’ll be off in a different direction,” she says.
One of Darlene’s next goals is to be in the Florida Watercolor Association, a juried show that is held in different locations each year. She has tested the waters by entering once to learn the process and the judging criteria.
“I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t make it. It wasn’t a great picture,” she says. “But I learned a lot.
In addition to sales at art shows, Darlene draws and paints illustrations and covers for Jack’s books. An award-winning writer, Jack specializes in business and baseball books and the figure drawings often show athletes in action.
Darlene is also frugal.
“If I don’t like something I’ve painted, I’ll turn the paper over and work on the other side,” she says.
Darlene recalls one customer who bought a painting and came running back. “Oh, I bought the wrong picture. This isn’t the one I wanted,” Darlene said. “Turn it over.” And there was her painting.
John W Prince is a writer and Villager. For more information visit www.GoMyStory.com. If you know of someone with a good story, contact John at John@GoMyStory.com.
