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Midland-born painter, Paul Redditt began life with an artistic gift that surfaced early and was encouraged by his parents—and especially inspired by seeing his mother’s high talent for painting and sculptures—and it became a primary focus and activity for him in his youth and schooling. Drafting and art classes in high school helped shape and increase his skills. In the late 70s, Redditt moved on to post-secondary education at Sheridan College in Brampton where, because of his evident skills to draw and create, he was allowed to skip the first-year art fundamentals class and begin in the second year of the four—with focus on technical illustration/design and model-making. Having picked up the skill of air brush illustration, he expanded that learning during his summer months by creating paintings of his friends’ muscle cars. And even painted a female robot figure on a car owned by his mom that he was permitted to drive. He became friends with his future wife, Tuula while at Sheridan (on whom he had a serious unexpressed crush)–with both moving on after their graduation in 1984, but meeting up some years later upon her applying for a job where he was working in Brampton (they married in 1990). Paul’s first employment began the summer after college with a position creating instructional drawings for Ontario Hydro’s nuclear program installers—then he moved along to an agency called Acorn Tech Art where his skills as a technical illustrator were put to use creating contact lens packaging. Next, he landed a position at Atlantis Aerospace, experts in military aircraft component solutions. He was called on to create tech drawings and animations for training mechanics how to assemble and install components—and his air brush skills were put to use to create cover art for instructional publications. And it was here that he linked up again with Tuula when she applied for, and was hired, to join the technical graphics team. They—along with a group of designers—conceived and brought to life, large wall-size interactive components and installation instructions among many other varied projects. He eventually became the group leader, challenged to “keep things going”. After 13 years there, Paul and Tuula created Sky Studio—freelancing technical designs and illustrations for a variety of clients. In 1998, Paul was hired by CTV News and spent 26 years with them, creating graphics and editing photos to accompany the weather reporting by a lengthy cast of weather |
personalities/characters. He was “culled” in 2024 and it was then that he and Tuula realized they were ready to move from the intensity of metropolitan living to the slower pace of rural Ontario and found an ideal acreage and house on Airport Road, Bancroft. Paul expresses profound pleasure in having a property with a pond and stream, trees and hills and wildlife aplenty. He shoots photos of local wildlife and plunged right into creating acrylic on canvas paintings of herons, birds of prey, humming birds, squirrels and turtles. He even tries his hand at colourful works of abstract floral expressionism. Drop by and see these artistic wonders during the tour on the weekends of September 19 & 20 and 26 & 27. And connect with him at paulredditt3d@gmail.com (Profile writing and photo by Allan O’Marra) |
