THE TRAILHEAD
Whitcomb’s love of the Western landscape began on a
ranch in Colorado. Though he drew as a child, art wasn’t a
viable career choice for the son of a rancher. “I didn’t know
anyone who was a painter,” he recalls. “Painters were in
the museums. You had to be dead to do that!”
On the advice of his parents, he enrolled at Colorado
State University to work toward a business degree.
“During my first year, I took an art class,” Whitcomb says.
“It was just for me, because I loved to draw.” His professor
took him aside at the end of the semester, however, and
told him that he ought to consider changing his major. “It
was all the encouragement I needed,” he says.
With his wife and young child in tow, Whitcomb moved
to Los Angeles to study at The ArtCenter College of Design
to pursue a career in illustration. In the early 1970s,
illustration was a wide-open field that included every-
thing from product design to storyboarding for the film
industry, and there was plenty of work to be had.
As soon as he finished his degree, the artist was anxious
to see L.A. in the rear-view mirror. “We wanted to get back
home to Colorado,” he says. The family settled in Denver,
and Whitcomb brought his portfolio to an art director,
hoping to land some freelance illustration work. The
response took him by surprise. The art director told him heABOVE
Shoshone
Shadows (20x24)
LEFT
Cascade Creek
(14x18)A thumbnail
and color study
became seeds
for Whitcomb’s
finished painting,
Ascension (28x28)
seen on the
previous page.26 Pastel Journal AUGUST 2019