By Joyce DeWallace, Contributing Writer
Shrewsbury – Lenny Wos wears many hats. During the week, he creates and delivers training and course development materials as a corporate software trainer. Early in the morning or after work, he’s out on Lake Quinsigamond rowing his single rowing shell. On weekends and when he has any spare time, Wos, the artist, paints or draws cartoons.
“I fell in love with drawing at an early age,” explained Wos, who is originally from Clifton, N.J.
After high school, he took an art correspondence course, which gave him a solid background in drawing. Next came four years in the Air Force. From 1971 to 1981, he worked as a mailman to support his wife and four children during the day and earned a summa cum laude business degree from Arizona State University at night. He still managed to squeeze in a cartooning class and parlayed that skill into a job as the sports cartoonist in Scottsdale, and eventually taught cartoon classes in Arizona and California.
His career in materials management involved moves to Colorado, then to California, where he lived for 10 years. He bought a rowing machine, took one class, and discovered his other passion.
“I started rowing in San Diego when I moved close enough to Mission Bay,” he recalled. “It looked like a nice sport, fluid, and a full body exercise outdoors. Being on the water is such a joy with sunrises and all that stuff.”
He painted his first rowing picture titled “Sunrise on Mission Bay.”
That’s when he decided to keep track of all his rowing time either on the water or on machines with the goal of circumnavigating the world. He has since surpassed that goal.
“Right now, I’m up to 28,200 miles. It’s my main form of exercise,” Wos said.
His work includes much travel. In London for two months, he joined the Twickenham Rowing Club. He has been to 48 of the 50 U.S. states, as well as Bahrain, Dubai, Istanbul, Kuwait, Ireland, Canada and Mexico. Wherever Wos travels, he rows, either on the water or on a machine.
He also keeps a sketchbook journal of his trips, using pen and ink and watercolor.
“I was inspired by Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, to keep an illustrated diary, which I started in the ‘80s,” he said. “It’s a way to record my life’s big adventures.”
These books have over 100 cartoons and illustrations.
“My training jobs have me travel,” he explained. “When I do, I find a club where I can get on the water. I meet great people who are generous and kind and make the whole travel experience something special. Then I sketch the places I go and the people I meet.”
His profession led him to move to eastern Massachusetts, where he rowed for the Merrimack River Rowing Association in Lowell. There he painted his first Massachusetts rowing picture, “Scullers at the Tyngsboro Bridge.”
“I try to capture the unique signature image of each rowing venue or regatta,” added Wos.
Since then he has painted over a dozen pictures with that theme.
Within a few years, he wanted to find a waterfront property so he could row all the time, which brought him to Central Mass. In 1996, he found a condo on the shores of Lake Quinsigamond not far from the Donahue Rowing Center. Many of his current oil paintings feature the Kenneth Burns Bridge as racers skim over the water in various regattas.
“Besides my personal work (often featuring his children and grandchildren in landscape settings), I accept commissions for team sports, particularly crew teams, horses and even portraits. I’m good at capturing images,” Wos noted.
For more about the artist, visit www.leonardwos.com. To purchase originals, prints or commissions, Wos can be reached at [email protected].