Realist Oil Painter

Bill Little was born November 13, 1958 in E. St. Louis IL. It was during his early years of childhood that Bill’s artistic eye and appreciation for nature was trained by yearly trips with his family to visit his paternal grandmother at her cottage on the south shore of a pristine lake in the forests of northern Wisconsin; he came to realize the purity of the glare-free northern blue light, the nature of reflections on the water, and the allure of the spiraling morning mist over the mirror surface of Road Lake. His family also took frequent trips to his maternal grandfathers’ farmland in remote southeastern Illinois where the only sounds to be heard were that of nature, the horizon was far away, dotted with distant farmhouses and barns, and one could take leave of all senses in the abundance of peace.

He enjoyed casually drawing in his spare time, and in school earned the reputation as the class cartoonist. During his years in high school he took art classes to further his interest, and soon found himself receiving notoriety for his artwork. He won a number of scholastic art awards, both in his local school and in St. Louis as well as the surrounding area.

After 4 years of high school in O’Fallon IL, Bill entered the secular workforce as well as volunteer activities and began honing his artistic skills while attending the ‘school of life’ throughout adulthood. All the while he continued his careful observation of nature and also built an appreciation of historic works of art, and found himself consistantly drawn toward the work of the masters of centuries gone by.

Bill's painting skills were primarily self-acquired through observation, practice, and study of the works and methods of the masters of European landscape art as well as the Hudson River School of New York State in the mid 1800s. In time he began to introduce moods in his paintings by varying color tones and values, and through personal experimentation he eventually began employing variations of sfumato (a technique developed in the 15th century to seamlessly and carefully overlay translucent layers of color to create depth, volume and form without visible brushstrokes) in his compositions. Comfortable with a diversity of oil painting methods accumulated through the years, Bill’s ‘style’ has matured to feature light-infused atmospheres, mystery-enshrouded shadows, and what the early 1800s English landscape master John Constable called ‘the chiaroscuro of nature’ – the ‘glow’ of the subjects of classic landscapes – in his paintings.

Bill performs a Chopin Nocturne on the Bosendorfer Grand at the Indianapolis Museum of Art

Bill Little currently resides in O’Fallon, IL. Although through the years he has produced a limited number of paintings, he has recently taken the opportunity to increase his output. Bill currently serves as President of the Gateway East Artist's Guild, and is also a member of the St. Louis Artists’ Guild and the Jacoby Art Center in Alton, IL. Furthermore, he devotes a portion of his spare time and thought to studying the piano works of the early romantic era composers. What remains of Bill's mental resources is exhausted by tending to his knucklehead golden retriever, Sailor.