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 Woods does it by reading greens. Gordon does it by reading faces, and then capturing what she sees in detailed pencil-and-charcoal portraits. "I've heard a lot of people argue about whether one of my pictures is a photograph or a drawing," said Gordon, whose freehand images of Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and other golfers, as well as courses such as Torrey Pines, have earned her a following over the past few years. A self-taught artist, Gordon has been catching unguarded expressions and competitive gazes for posterity for quite some time. Drawing since she was a youngster, Gordon in a sense "turned professional" when she was 10 by placing third and earning $10 in a "draw your pop" contest held by a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. "I was inventing faces for the fun of it when I was a little kid," said Gordon, 50, who lives in La Mesa and works part time as a public notary. "As an adult, I was doing portraits for friends and colleagues. It was a word-of-mouth thing." She entered contests in elementary school and high school, but it was an entry in an adult contest that drew the attention of art aficionado Vernon Willis and art seller Doug McIntosh, proprietor of southlandgolf-ART.com. Gordon entered an original portrait of Woods in the Del Mar Fair in 1999. It sold the first day and also earned her first-place and manager's-choice awards. Willis was the buyer. "He was into art collecting. He meets up with people (depicted in the drawing), gives them the original portrait but then gets their signature for reproducing the image as a signed print," Gordon said. Other professional athletes Gordon has depicted in pencil, charcoal and occasionally pastels include Magic Johnson, Annika Sorenstam, Shawne Merriman, Trevor Hoffman and Kobe Bryant. She also has drawn musicians Ray Charles, Miles Davis and Bob Marley, and actors Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe. A couple of summers ago, Gordon won first place at the Del Mar Fair for a pencil-and-pastel drawing of Nicklaus with his 1978 British Open trophy. "I gave Tiger Woods prints of the drawings I had done of him and he sent me a letter back saying how he was honored and that obviously I was very talented," Gordon said. McIntosh has been selling prints of Gordon's original drawings for nearly a year. He retained her services after coming across her portrait of Palmer at a San Diego frame shop. "I was so impressed with the image that I talked to the gallery owner and asked how to contact her," McIntosh said. McIntosh, a custom publisher who has been producing the San Diego Golf Guide & Map for 15 years, contracted Gordon to depict the third hole on the South Course at Torrey Pines. The image graces the cover of this year's guide, and McIntosh struck a deal with the USGA to distribute the guide to attendees of the U.S. Open in June. The guide also is available through the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau. Gordon's abilities seem to be a result of nature and nurture. Her mother, Marie Gordon, is a painter who taught art in high schools for decades. Now retired but still painting, Marie volunteers at San Diego City College. "We don't have wallpaper in our home, we have artwork covering all the walls," Shela Gordon said with a laugh. Gordon spent 10 years as a maker of fine-art jewelry that sold at high-end retail stores such as Nordstrom, and also developed a clientele as a muralist. But "making faces" seems to best define her as an artist. To see more of Shela Gordon's work or to purchase a portrait, visit southlandgolf-ART.com and click on her name. |
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