By JORDAN GREEN, Editor-in-Chief
When clouds fill the sky over Alva, Calvin Graybill doesn’t stay inside his house. He runs outside to take pictures.
“I really like to paint clouds,” the 70-year-old artist said. “I do a little bit of everything.”
Graybill is one of several people who has painted murals around Alva, which has become known as the state’s mural capital. In 2006, with the help of fellow artist Jim Richey, Graybill painted a mural of a man and his dogs hunting birds in a field one fall afternoon.
In the mural, puffy clouds hover above the man, dressed in orange and carrying his rifle, as his dogs watch quail flying in the air. The mural is on the west wall of the Ashley Property Services building at 432 Oklahoma Blvd.
“I took lessons from a man several years ago, and he painted clouds,” Graybill said. “Boy, it kind of gave me the bug. … The sky is a canvas, and the clouds are the actors on this stage.”
Graybill has only painted one mural, but he’s painted numerous landscape- and wildlife-themed works through the years.
His wife, Verna, is from nearby Carmen. The two moved to Alva in 1995, where Calvin Graybill has since set up his own art studio. Verna Graybill worked as a librarian at Northwestern for several years.
Calvin Graybill isn’t a Ranger, however. In fact, he’s a Southwestern Oklahoma State Bulldog.
That’s where he got his degree in education.
He doesn’t hold any grudges against the Rangers, though. He just likes the color blue.
It’s his favorite color to paint with – especially when he’s painting clouds.
“The Lord has really blessed me,” he said. “He’s given me a passion to paint. I just love to paint.”