An Artist’s Perspective

As I told subscribers in my monthly newsletter, I received my first oil paint set when I was twelve, a gift from my mom. In my twenties, I switched to acrylics (I’m too impatient to wait while oils dry). These days, while I enjoy pulling out my paints on occasion, I can say with all honesty that I’m not a true artist. I just enjoy playing with it a little bit.

That’s not true of Roger Bernhardt, the hero in To Reveal a Reckless Love. He lives and breathes his art. He sees everything around him through that special lens. It took real effort to get inside his head and manage to put his view on paper, and all I could do was pray I’d managed it. An advance reader emailed me before the book’s release last week to say, “I was so moved by the story line and the detailed description of the Grand Tetons and the passages where you described the paint colors used to paint the buffalo.” Talk about music to a writer’s ears! A sweet moment for sure.

I shared the following post on my website for the Autumn Scavenger Hunt last month, but I thought it worth sharing with my friends on Inspired by Life and Fiction too. So here you go:

When I wrote To Reveal a Reckless Love, I discovered that seeing the world through my hero’s eyes changed the way I wrote. Roger Bernhardt is an artist. He views everything around him in terms of line and shape, color and light, texture and depth. Telling his story meant that I, too, had to become an artist of sorts—not with brush and canvas, but with words.

Like a painter, I found myself thinking in color. The morning light on Yellowstone Lake wasn’t simply “beautiful.” In Roger’s eyes, it was silver threaded with gold, a shimmering blue that shifted as the breeze stirred the water. I had to choose my words the way an artist chooses pigments, layering description until the scene came alive.

Perspective matters, too. Every painter knows the angle changes what the viewer sees. Writing through Roger’s point of view reminded me that each character filters the world differently. Roger notices the curve of a branch, the tilt of a hat, the wash of color across the sky before he registers spoken words. Seeing through his artistic lens challenged me to write with sharper attention to detail.

In the end, painting and storytelling share the same purpose. To capture truth and beauty. That’s what I hope people will find when they read To Reveal a Reckless Love.

~robin