Colored pencil drawing enthusiast Jerry Wringer pauses next to the portrait of the late U.S. Representative Jackie Walorski he drew in 2019. He said the project took him “a few hours” and he used eight to 10 pencil colors for the drawing. Photo by Ray Balogh.

By Ray Balogh
Ink Free News

Lifelong pencil drawing enthusiast and unshakably devoted husband Jerry Wringer made a vow to his wife when she entered a nursing home in February 2018.

“I told her I would make her at least one drawing a day.”

That was nearly 3,000 drawings ago, and the 74-year-old Nappanee resident who grew up in Plymouth shows no sign of flagging.

He still exhibits considerable enthusiasm for artistically recreating “a little bit of everything: trains, landscape, birds, flowers, people. I just love expressing myself on paper in drawings.”

All the drawings in his repertoire are dated, creating somewhat of an autobiographical “sketch” (pun intended) of the man.

A couple years ago Wringer switched to colored pencils as his medium of choice. “I rough in the drawings with graphite,” he said, which he erases after he applies the colored pencil images.

He has been a devotee of the art form “pretty much all my life,” he said. “I started as a kid, inspired by Norman Rockwell and by (Nappanee cartoonist) Max Gwin, who in the 1920s drew ‘Slim and Spud,’ single-panel cartoons about a farmer and his hired hand.”

Wringer took some high school art classes and thought about becoming a commercial artist. “But the military interrupted,” he said. Wringer served in the U.S. Army from 1969-72 and then joined the Reserves and the National Guard, fulfilling eight years of service to this country.

He moved to Nappanee 45 years ago and the following year joined American Legion Post 154, where he has been a member since.

He plies his hobby nearly every morning “for a couple hours” at the Main Street Roasters coffeehouse in downtown Nappanee. Over the years, he had set up his impromptu studio in the town’s McDonald’s and then Burger King franchises.

Though he occasionally sells a drawing here and there, he derives the most satisfaction from the reactions of the recipients of his artwork.

“I did two drawings of white-tail deer for our pastor for Pastor Appreciation Month. He hunted white-tail deer and said the drawings were better than any card he could have received.”

He also recalled brightening the day for his 4-year-old neighbor boy, Liam. “Liam came by at the coffeehouse and said, ‘It would be neat if you drew a tractor.’ So I drew a colored picture of a 1966 John Deere from a clipping and gave it to him.

“He liked it so much he showed it to everybody in the coffeehouse. His parents framed it and hung it on his bedroom wall.”

Wringer was also gratified by the smile of a girl less than a year old when she saw her portrait and recognized herself.

He has made drawings of Kathy Lee Gifford, Betty White, Carol Burnett, John Wayne “and other actors and actresses.”

But perhaps the most consequential drawing for him right now is the colored pencil sketch of the late Jackie Walorski that he drew in 2019.

“I took (the likeness) from one of her campaign photos shortly after the midterms,” he said. “I met her at Coppes Commons and she got to see the drawing.”

For Wringer, the art project was a labor of love. “I am a veteran and she meant a lot to me because of all she did a lot for us vets.”

He has three copies of Walorski’s portrait. He keeps one at home, recently hung up a copy on the wall of the Nappanee American Legion post and is saving the third framed copy for Mayor Phil Jenkins to present to Walorski’s widower at a reception now being planned.

For more information, or to commission Wringer for a drawing, call him at (574) 202-7352.