Scenes from nature.

By Bobbie Thibodeax

The Mississippi Press

3/9/2005

MOSS POINT-Even though he’s in the middle of an extended project of renovating an old house for him and his wife, Sheila, Ronald Killgo takes some time off now and then to draw. Depicting scenes from nature with pen and ink satisfies his creative urges and it provides a little extra income.

When he retired from the Army Corps of Engineers, Killgo decided to buy a place and fix it up. He chose to locate in Moss Point because he fell in love with the area. “I love the Coast, especially Moss Point,” he said. “I love the old houses, the beach scenes.”

He had started doing his pen and ink drawings when he lived in Vicksburg. He did a number of the Civil War battle sites. On visits to the Coast, he did some shrimp boats and other Coastal scenes.

 “Anything I find of interest in the way of nature or my surroundings makes me want to draw,” he said. “I don’t do people. I never did pick up doing people.”

 Killgo has learned that if he wants to depict a scene with his pen, he’d better take some photographs. Then he can work on his drawings at any time and not have to worry about interruptions by curious spectators – or the direction of the shadows.

 “If I try to sit in one spot while I draw, then usually someone comes up and starts talking. That distracts me.”

 That isn’t the only problem with drawing on-site. “Sometimes the sun shifts before I finish, and the shadows move around. Someone told me one time that the shadows inone of my drawings pointed one way in part of the picture, another way in another part. It was because the sun moved, but it looked strange.”

 He fixed those problems by investing in a good camera. Now he can snap dozens of pictures and use them as a reminder of details in the scene. “I can remember a lot of special details, but photographs help if you need to check something.”

 Using photographs rather than trying to draw at the scene also allows him to work on the drawings at his leisure. “I like to work on the drawings in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep.”

 After moving here in September 2003, he bought an old house and immediately began to remodel it, with the help of his wife, into the retirement home of his dreams. He has incorporated his artistic ideas into the design, planning a round kitchen. He hand crafts many details, such as making an exterior of vertical slats for a set of round shelves.

Probably the most dramatic detail shows on the cabinet doors, where he has etched some of his drawings. “This takes a lot of time. Later, after I finish my house, I may take orders to do a few of these, but I don’t want to turn it into a business so I have deadline pressure. That would take the fun out of doing them.”

Although he has run into a number of unexpected delays, he hopes to complete the first stage by summer. “I had hoped to finish the house by last August, but the total package required a lot more than I expected.”

 One of the first local subjects he tackled in his drawings was the old Nelson House. About the same time, he drew Moss Point High School.

 “I did that one for the high school. Sheila had a friend who was teaching journalism. They had prints made and they sold them as a fund-raiser for the yearbook. I gave all the prints and all the proceeds on that to the high school, and I kept the original.”

 He has depicted a number of buildings and other landmarks, but his favorite subjects are scenes from nature. “I’m more in tune to natural scenes, like the drawings I’ve done of Mars Lake in Ocean Springs after the hurricane, the Moss Point bridge on 613, and the Moss Point River front.”

 Sometimes special events will stir in him a need to draw. His brother returned from serving in Iraq on Christmas Eve. Killgo was moved to do a picture combining patriotic symbols, including the Statue of Liberty, the flag, and the twin towers.

 “He says he doesn’t use color because he’s color blind,” said his wife, Sheila. “I think that gives him the ability to see details more clearly.”

 “If there can be a tone-deaf musician, why can’t there be a color blind artist?” he said.

 Killgo started selling his drawings about 1980. Currently his work is for sale at Individually United at Singing River Mall and Burnham Drugs, Moss Point. “I’d like to get a lot more merchants Coastwide handling my drawings on consignment,” he said.