Water colors

Published 12:12 pm Tuesday, June 26, 2007

On a brilliantly sunny Sunday afternoon at Brackett’s Landing in Edmonds, divers dot the parking lot, donning fins, masks and dry suits.

Jarrett Holderby hasn’t gotten to that point yet. After all, it’s quite a process to prepare to paint underwater.

Holderby, a Snohomish resident, is a commercial artist and an accomplished illustrator. He’s also a veteran diver.

In 1997, Holderby got the idea to combine his two loves. He believed that to paint in a realistic style, an artist must use the most accurate firsthand reference material possible. For Holderby, using a camera to capture underwater scenes just wasn’t good enough.

He decided to paint what he saw. Today, Holderby creates oil paintings underwater while wearing scuba gear.

“I found there were dramatic limitations with a camera,” Holderby, 49, said. “When I was diving once in the San Juans and I saw this wall full of life, and all kinds of beautiful creatures and I thought, ‘I could do a whole lot better job of capturing this if I could paint it.’ And I thought, ‘Why can’t I do it?’ “

Holderby found that, indeed, he could paint underwater.

Though he still tinkers with the method, he’s got the basic process down. Selecting the paints is one of the first steps.

On a recent Sunday, Holderby picked a tube of paint, squirted a blob inside the square of a black rectangular pallet, then selected another color, repeating the process until his pallet was complete.

Then he took the unfinished painting – Holderby has 15 to 20 canvases in various stages of completion – and attached the canvas to an easel using a bungee cord. The oak easel is covered with a kind of varnish used on boats for protection from salt water.

Once under water, the easel is tethered to the sea bottom with an augur screwed into the sand. The augur looks like the business end of an oversized corkscrew. Holderby found this particular model, normally sold to dog owners who want to tether their animals to a line in the backyard, works well.

Holderby then gathered his brushes in a standard art studio container and attached those to the easel.

His underwater studio was just about ready to take below. Now Holderby could put on his dive gear.

But before getting wet, Holderby made sure not to forget two more essential components of this underwater painting process: the dive light and, more importantly, his dive buddy.

It took years for Holderby to find Richard Peckler, and, in fact, it was Peckler who found Holderby.

In 2001, Holderby quit his underwater art. He had a string of problems in his personal and professional life and lost the dive buddy he had at the time “to a sailboat.”

In 2004, Peckler walked into Holderby’s Snohomish gallery. Peckler appreciated Holdberby’s marine artwork, especially the orca in the acrylic illustration “The Prince of Whales.”

“I hate to even say this, but it spoke to me,” recalled Peckler, who is 43 and a diver for the city of Bellevue.

So moved, Peckler approached Holderby and asked if he needed a dive buddy.

It was as if Holderby had found his underwater soul mate.

“It’s always an experience when we go,” Peckler said. “We’ve sat down there so still, and one time there were hundreds of shrimp just climbing all over him. You don’t see that when you’re just swimming around.

“It started out as a curiosity and now it’s a passion. I see a lot of stuff other divers don’t get to see.”

Peckler does much more than observe. He watches for the right tides, schedules the dives, holds the lights, monitors the air gauges and keeps on eye out for dangerous situations.

“I’ve had more work production in the last two years than in the eight years prior,” said Holderby, praising his dive buddy. “It makes a lot of difference when you’ve got a guy watching your back.”

With Peckler’s help, Holderby could also refine the painting process. He had ditched the pastels for oils long ago and didn’t dive deep anymore. Now, Holderby has the time to sketch out his drawings before applying paint, greatly improving the quality.

So many factors play into completing a canvas – the visibility, the lighting, the turbidity of the water – that the process just to complete one painting could take months. Holderby won’t be quitting his day job anytime soon, but that’s OK. The journey has made this trial-and-error process worthwhile.

“Part of the fun is figuring it all out,” Holderby said. “It’s a real added dimension and a real challenge to be a good diver as well as a good painter.”

Arts writer Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424 or goffredo@ heraldnet.com.