“Can you really do paintings like this in a half hour?”

Finally, he asked “Can you really do paintings like this in a half hour?”

KOCE was a new public television station just starting up in Huntington Beach, CA in 1979. They wanted to do a new type of educational programming. Bill’s agent called and told Bill he had set up an audition for him at the studio.

At first the producer was skeptical that Bill could create a complete oil painting in only 27 minutes. Bill astounded everyone at the station when he finished his painting “on time”. It would take another month before the station called him back with the good news that they wanted to do the show.

Not only was Bill’s program a success, in Season One, Bill won an Emmy award for his participation in “The Magic of Oil Painting.” The painting shown is the one that Bill created for the show that KOCE submitted to the Emmy award committee.

You can read Bill’s entire autobiography here.