“If you grow up in Detroit, it seems that everybody is connected with the auto business in one way or another so it’s just expected you’ll aim your career toward one of what used to be known as the ‘Big Three.’ ”
As it turned out, when Wyss graduated from Wayne State, he went into advertising where he wrote ads for Chevrolet “muscle cars,” i.e. high-powered cars.
He later moved to California where he worked for car magazines like Motor Trend.
His writing career took up the next few decades. It was only in June, 2007, by sheer accident, that he discovered he had talent as a painter.
“I backed into the art field accidentally,” says Wyss. ‘What happened was that I was doing a book signing at a car show and made a watercolor painting of race driver Carroll Shelby to draw people over to my booth. A Miami publisher saw the painting and bought it on the spot. I decided then and there to make prints available of future paintings so more people could enjoy them.”
His first half dozen works are all Ford-themed, on purpose so that they connect with the three books he published in 2007, all on Fords. “Two were on Carroll Shelby’s cars-- the Cobras and the Shelby Mustangs--and one on the GT40 race car and its later street descendent, the Ford GT.”
With no art education to speak of , Wyss definitely counts himself to be in the "Raw Art" camp. Says Wyss: “Like Granma Moses, I’ve had no training, but just paints them as I sees them, you might say.”
He uses both low-tech and high-tech methods. He starts from a photograph, possibly one of the 10,000 he took for his car stories, and paints a watercolor. Then when he reaches the limit of his talent with a brush and paint, he scans the painting into Photoshop and refines the picture further.
When he’s satisfied it is ready to print, the next step is a transfer to canvas using a giclee method. The usual dimensions for the finished product are 18” x 24” gallery-wrapped.
“So far I’ve done more cars than racing personalities,” says Wyss, “I think that’s because maybe I’m a frustrated car designer.”
His favorites are the cars of the 1960’s , especially those that raced in endurance races like the 24 Hours of LeMans. ”I liked the curves sports cars had before the shapes began to be dictated purely by wind tunnel testing,” he says. “Today many endurance racing cars look the same but back then each marque—Ferrari, Porsche or Cobra, for example—had its own distinctive styling.”
So far one gallery in Carmel,CA has displayed his works, and currently World Class Motoring, in Agoura, Calif., has five of his giclees on display. They can also be ordered straight from his printer (ArtShows@msn.com)
“What’s holding me back is time,” says Wyss. “it takes 15-20 days to get to that first print. And there’s so many cars that are my favorites, that I don’t know which ones to choose as the subject for the next work. But I know one thing—if I do the ones whose styling appeals to me most, there’s someone somewhere that will appreciate my choice.”