Robert Brower Mesrop - October 2006 Falmouth Artist of the Month

Published: October 06, 2006 « Back to Latest News

The October Falmouth Artist Guild member, teacher, and artist Robert Brower Mesrop vividly remembers receiving a wooden box of Weber oil paints as a gift from his parents about 63 years ago. He loved to draw as a young child; and recalls with a smile taking his Dad’s laundry shirt cardboards and putting them to good use. He would draw all types of large ships and ocean liners on the cardboard paper. Raised in New York City he saw all the ships that came into the harbor from the Queen Mary to the Normandy as he recalled life before World War II.

After completing high school, he went to work as an auto mechanic and excelled in repairing cars and engines. After joining the Air Force, he became a jet engine mechanic working on the B-47 bombers during his four-year tour of duty in California. He got married after concluding his Air Force service, and attended the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, California, and received his Bachelor of Professional Arts degree.

Since he has always been a New Yorker at heart, he and his family then returned to New York where he started his first art director position with the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency and remained with them for 18 years. He worked on several major accounts; some of which were the Ford Motor Company and Merrill Lynch. His work involved creating television, magazine, newspaper, outdoor billboard advertising, and illustrating automobiles. Mr. Mesrop was a natural at this since he knew cars and engines from the inside out. He also served as art director at Kenyon and Eckhardt for several years, totaling 22 years working for advertising firms.

While living in Tenafly, New Jersey, Mr. Mesrop and his wife raised two children, a son and a daughter. He also began teaching watercolor classes at the adult education evening courses at the local high schools.

After working in this hectic advertising field for many years, he was looking for a change of pace and he and his wife moved to the Adirondack Region of New York State. Peace and tranquility reigned on the 100-acre farm with wilderness and beautiful views throughout the seasons. He began teaching painting classes there and became associated with a gallery in Shelburne, Vermont near the Lake Champlain area. Eventually Mr. Mesrop became the president of the Adirondack Art Association and lived in that area for six years. Many of his watercolor paintings are from this region of the state.

From there he and his wife left New York State for New Bern, North Carolina, which is north of Wilmington near Morehead City. He continued teaching painting courses and was represented by several art galleries in the area. When the heat and humidity of the South became too much to handle, he and his family chose to move to Cape Cod about ten years ago.

Mr. Mesrop and his wife, both artists, quickly became a part of the Marstons Mills community. He was involved in doing some major changes to their new home when his wife became ill and passed away. After a period of time, he returned to painting.

He credits his learning to repair and maintain a household by reading and applying what he learned to his home remodeling. Carpentry, plumbing, electrical wiring, all left-brained skills are second nature to him; and he takes satisfaction in a job well done. Even his woodpile, which he uses to heat his home, became a subject for his paintings. Other subject materials are right in his own back yard. Beautiful trees surround his home and these too, found their way into oil and watercolor paintings.

One of his most unique paintings is a frog-s view of what a cranberry bog must look like from the bottom of the bog. This is a very colorful abstract watercolor of strong blues, reds, and the seasonal colors of the bogs, all designed in a clever composition! I gave it a “10” for creativity upon viewing it certainly not your usual bog painting! Whether it is a portrait, barn, building, landscape, boat or seascape, in whatever season, this artist renders all scenes with confidence and style. Some of his paintings remind me of Andrew Wyeth’s works. Most definitely, bold, strong compositions with the use of outstanding color can only come from many years of practice. Although Mr. Mesrop is a watercolorist first and foremost, he also worked in pen and ink, and oils. He prefers watercolors because of the challenge with changing light and shadows. He paints to capture a moment in time. “Freshness and luminosity of watercolor make it the perfect medium. It requires discipline, planning and forethought.” A very large collection of his works adorn his living space in his home, with some of the most powerful landscapes that I have ever seen. As I have mentioned in past articles, art is such a visual thing. You can read about it in a book, but once you see it with your own eyes, you can quickly confirm what excellent watercolor painting is all about. His trees sing with texture and colors almost as if they were characters in a play.

Mr. Mesrop created a video, Draw Better, Paint Better that is one and one half hours long. He was featured with local artists, Karen North Wells, Arnold Desmaris, and Bill Maloney on Channel 17 at the CATV in Dennis on Whites Path and on Sandwich PBS, Public Broadcasting System).

Some teachers and mentors that he admires are: Ms.Dorothea Redman at the Art Students League where he feels he experienced his “Aha moment”, where all the concepts he studied in high school came together. Illustrator John LaGotta influenced his painting figure skills and he admires the paintings of Van Gogh, Alphonse Mucha and Andrew Wyeth. Locally he appreciates the talents of Cape Cod artist Bill Maloney and artist Don Stone of Monhegan Island in Maine.

In watercolors, Mr. Mesrop mentioned you must first have a value plan in your head of what you want to paint. “Watercolor requires you to make a plan, to create a mental picture before you can put a paintbrush to the paper, so that you can approach the paper with the spontaneity that is the hallmark of the medium.”

“You should paint 50 paintings in order to process this experience. People do not allow themselves this process to learn what works and what doesn’t. They start out with a watercolor, and if they don’t get it in a couple of tries, they give up.” You must practice, do it, and make mistakes to learn what happens,” says Mr. Mesrop. “It is still an ongoing process for me. I learn as I teach today.”

When mentioning what seems to be the most difficult thing in developing a painting, Mr. Mesrop says, “When I see something I want to paint, it is not so much the technical aspect that challenges me, but what I feel and what I want to render on paper that becomes the problem.” “How do I translate what I feel to paper?” “I usually have a few paintings ongoing. That way, I can put one aside and keep looking at it to make sure everything is working. I am happy with my results.”

What keeps him creating? Mr. Mesrop fully enjoys interpreting what nature provides. “There are so many places and things to be painted, I never run out of subjects. Tree roots, water, people or places, they are all subjects waiting to be painted.”

He has received 14 awards for his watercolors in the last four years. Six of these are First Place awards. His name became a household word in teaching classes as the Cape Cod Art Association where he now teaches year round, the Chatham Art Association, and the Falmouth Artists Guild. His work is represented at the Fresh Paint Gallery in Yarmouthport and the Artisan House Gallery in East Sandwich.

His paintings have been featured on the American Artist magazine. He conducts a four-day workshop aboard the schooner Lewis R. French out of Camden, Maine in the fall and summer seasons.

Mr. Mesrop’s paintings have been exhibited in New York City, upstate New York, North Carolina, Vermont, and in Boston and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He is a member of the Cape Cod Art Association, Dennis; the Creative Art Center, Chatham; the Falmouth Artists Guild, Falmouth; and the Yarmouth Art Guild, Yarmouth, Massachusetts.

When he is not painting or teaching, he enjoys playing musical instruments and singing. His dad was an operatic tenor so singing came quite natural to him. He continues to sing in the choir today, something he has done for the past 10+ years. He plays the guitar, banjo, and other musical instruments, and has created a Sea Chantey Program. For further information, you can reach him at mesroprob@rcn.com.