Charcoal artist is also active in play production
By Eliav Appelbaum eliav@theacorn.com

BLONDE BEAUTY- This charcoal-and-pencil drawing of Marilyn Monroe is one of hundreds celebrity portraits sketched by local artist Gary Saderup.

Gary Saderup sometimes has to pinch himself.

Yup, he's not dreaming.

Saderup's job as an artist has taken him around the world, to Africa, Japan and Australia. One day he sat in a hotel room halfway across the earth and started thinking.

"My earliest memory of art was maybe when I was 4 years old, taking a lesson in Santa Monica with Mr. Ball," Saderup said, unable to recall his teacher's first name. "He was helping me draw dinosaurs. It was funny to reflect on this while overseas. This thing I love to do has taken me all over the world."

Saderup, who has lived in the Santa Rosa Valley since 1994, is renowned for his immaculate charcoal portraits, which include paintings of Abraham Lincoln, Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad Ali.

Saderup recently completed larger pieces in acrylic and oil, including two that featured trumpet player Louis Armstrong and Geronimo, the famed Apache leader. The artist currently has a gallery of his work in charcoal open in Temecula, Calif.

But Saderup, who has been a professional artist for 31 years, doesn't like settling on one particular pursuit.

For the last three years, Saderup has worked with Patrick Warburton in producing plays, most recently the quirky and insightful comedy "Darwin in Malibu," which played weekends in September at the Thousand Oaks High School Performing Arts Center. Saderup and Warburton starred in Englishman Crispin Whittell's play with Jennifer Tetlow and Terry Fishman.

"It was a very clever piece," said Saderup, who played the role of Charles Darwin living on the beach in Malibu with his surfer girlfriend. "It gives the audience a lot to think about. We developed an audience, and we were very happy about that."

On closing night, Sept. 30, Saderup found out that Whittell was going to attend the show. Saderup didn't want the rest of the cast to get nervous, so he kept Whittell's presence a secret until after the show.

"When I told the actors, they were flabbergasted; they were so pleased," said Saderup, whose wife, Mary, also is an awardwinning artist. Mary excels at oil and pastel chalk paintings of animals. "We all had a chance to meet him and say 'Hi.' That really doesn't happen very often."

Saderup and Warburton joined forces in 2005, and have also produced Shakespeare's "Othello" and "Macbeth." Saderup, who was born in Santa Monica but grew up in Venice, took a break from acting in 1984.

"I was pretty much out of it for over 20 years," Saderup said, "and then I had to come back and play Macbeth and then Othello. Those aren't exactly the easiest roles to play. It was a little nerve-racking."

With no plans to slow down, Saderup and Warburton are keeping their eyes open for another play in 2008.

"We're looking for some really new material, something that's never been done type of deal," Saderup said. "I don't think we have any plans of stopping."

Saderup completed his first portrait when he was 14. His first charcoal portraits were of movie stars from the 1930s and 1940s.

"I was so pleased when I was finally able to achieve a likeness," he said.

Saderup studied theater at the University of Hawaii and Brigham Young University before spending summers working at Cedar City Shakespeare Festival in Utah and the Santa Maria Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts.

After that, Saderup attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and began selling his work on weekends at flea markets in Costa Mesa. Eventually, he got picked up by different galleries, and for the last 15 years, barring this holiday season, Saderup set up a kiosk of his work in The Oaks mall.

Although he has recently taken up acting, Saderup said he always wants to paint. And charcoal has been his medium of choice.

"I like charcoal. People are always surprised my paintings are in charcoal because of the fine detail I'm able to get out of it," he said. "All artists want to communicate with people, how they perceive life and communicate their feelings to other people. I'm interested in all the arts. I'd like to be a better singer than I am; I'd like to be a better writer than I am. For me, I can best communicate through artwork or acting."