By Norman Kolpas
Growing up in rural Lancaster County, PA, during the Great Depression, William Ressler “had a lot of time to myself to draw,” he says. After high school and service in the Philippines with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, he entered the Philadelphia College of Art, earning an illustration degree. One of his professors there, W. Emerton Heitland, was “an exceptional watercolorist who took us out on field trips to paint, which got me interested in plein-air work.” He also developed a skill for drawing architecture in perfect perspective. “If you get that right,” he says, “it gives the building a feeling of solidity and reality.”
About five years ago, Ressler sat down to paint an 1813 brick millhouse along Brandywyne Creek in Wilmington, DE, during an annual home tour in the area. “I like painting in the open air because I have my details right in front of me. And I like the interaction with people who wander buy and watch me paint, because being an artist can be a lonely profession,” he says.
The resulting watercolor, BRECK’S MILL, is a singular example of Ressler’s plein-air watercolor work. “I’m drawn to anything that has structure and is picturesque,” he says.
After graduation in 1951, while working as a freelance illustrator in Philadelphia’s Center City, Ressler relied on watercolor. “You can start one in the morning, finish it in the afternoon, and deliver it to the client the next morning,” he says. In his spare time, while raising a family, he painted fine-art watercolors, too, and his works were accepted for exhibition by the American Watercolor Society.
Architecture—whether charming homes, historic sites, or Philadelphia landmarks—remains a favorite subject. (He is also known for his acrylic paintings of Biblical themes.) Often working on location, he begins by “sitting awhile to absorb the scene. I decide on the center of interest and what will revolve around that.” He may “scribble composition ideas on a piece of paper,” he notes, before sketching his final drawing with a #3 or #4 pencil—“just enough to establish perspective”—on a sheet of Arches watercolor paper that he has wetted and stretched to prevent buckling.
Another year in the same event, Ressler painted JOHN & KAY’S HOUSE, a residence converted from a historic schoolhouse. “I attended a one-room schoolhouse the first six years of my school career,” he says. “The quaintness of the restoration appealed to me.”
Ressler first paints the sky, lightly spraying the paper with water and then brushing wet into wet “so the color doesn’t gather in tight sections. The sky takes less time than anything else, but it’s crucial to establishing the mood.” Then he works forward, hinting at details. “The viewer will complete something in his mind that satisfies the desire for detail,” he explains, “so you don’t have to draw every clapboard on the house. It’s a mysterious process.”
To learn more about William Ressler’s artwork and creative process, visit www.williamressler.com.
Ressler prefers to use Pelikan watercolor paints, imported from Germany. “They’re very pure colors. I wet them all first so I can easily get them out, and then I mix them on a pure white palette, for luminosity and vibrancy.”
Several of the giclée prints Ressler sells from his website surround the work area of his home studio.