Name: Conrad Young.
Age: 75.
Title: Former owner of Young Associates, current full-time watercolor artist who has had his work featured on puzzles and Christmas cards, among other things.
How long were you in the advertising business, and when did you leave the field?
Forty-five years. In January of 2010 I made the transition to painting full-time.
What kind of advertising did you handle?
Full service advertising. Everything, soup to nuts. Billboards, TV, radio, brochures, annual reports. You name it, we did it.
How much does your advertising acumen come into play as you market your watercolor work?
Every day. I can't get away from it. I'm always calling someone to promote and let them know what I'm doing. You can have the best product in the world, but if people don't know that you have it, it's lost, and I've seen that all my life.
Do you have any watercolor artists that inspired you?
Andrew Wyeth, and my mentor was Ray Hendershot. I got books from him and went down and visited him. Every time I get stuck on a project, I go to his book and say, 'Okay, Ray, how would you do it?'
How quickly can you assemble a puzzle of your own work?
I'm not sure that helps any. I've been doing puzzles all my life, but it's always difficult.
What's the most time you've ever spent on one piece?
I did one of the oldest railroad bridge in the world, in Contoocook, and so I researched that about 12 or 15 hours before I even started painting, and then I probably painted for 35, 40 hours.
But most of my paintings do take minimum 20 hours and probably more like 30 hours.
Hidden talent?
One of my loves is basketball. I still play two nights a week, and I belong to the Senior Olympics. I have a plaque that I won on a national level for shooting foul shots.
We play over in Penacook at the middle school, and I have my own Senior Olympic team that plays all over New England.
Guilty pleasure?
That would have to be the basketball, because I run the team, and in the last 12 years I've recruited probably more than 100 players. (Conrad's wife, Penny, said she believes candy bars to be Conrad's guilty pleasure).
