Jim Souder was my illustration teacher in my senior year of art school. In my four years of art school, he was arguably the best teacher I had. (And this statement comes from someone who hates to rank and rate things. Let’s just say every other teacher I had was tied for second place.)
When Mr. Souder finished his stint in the United States Navy, he enrolled in the Hussian School of Art. After he graduated, he taught at the school for the next 51 years. I was lucky enough — no, make that privleged enough — to have him as an instructor.
Before Mr. Souder (as I can still only refer to him) was my teacher, I heard horror stories about his class. I heard that he was tough and angry and ruthless and a number of other fearsome and intimidating descriptors. However, on day one of his class, I found him to be informative, capable, knowledgeable and, most of all, very endearing. I learned a lot from Mr, Souder and what I learned, I feel, greatly improved my own illustrations.
He taught about backgrounds, citing of all things, the backgrounds on The Flintstones cartoon. He told his class to take special notice of the delicate and painterly aspect of the backgrounds of The Flintstones. When the statement elicited some giggles from members of the class, he frowned and repeated his assertion, demanding that we (as 20 year-olds) revisit the cartoon and see what he was talking about. Guess what, he was right. The backgrounds on The Flintstones are beautiful. No kidding.
Mr. Souder pushed his class to draw. And draw and draw and draw. Each week (I had his class once a week), he would give a different assignment to enhance our drawing ability. He would request that each student gather “scrap” to bring to class. “Scrap” is artist talk for “reference material.” Mr. Souder was adamant about drawing from reference. He dismissed drawing from imagination without a base in something real. He would tell his students: “You don’t really know what anything looks like without a reference. Studying something real will make your drawings better.” Once again, he was right.
Mr. Souder, I should note, was a typical, old school, “man’s man.” He was a gruff guy with a surprisingly kind disposition, but he was a stereotypical “man” and he liked manly things. When he asked students to bring in “scrap” for a drawing exercise, he would ask for pictures of cowboys and football players and Vikings and other manly examples. No flowers for this guy! No sir! It was always things like boxers or lumberjacks. It was cute and only added to Mr. Souder’s unique persona.
Despite his vast knowledge of drawing and technique, Mr. Souder was not without his quirks. He was a fountain of malapropisms. He would often talk about the artwork that would appear in the Sunday newspaper, specifically the “Sunday subligant.” There was a guy in our class whose name was Bob Eckert. Mr. Souder only referred to him as “Eggbert.” Bob never corrected him. He called every student “artist.” This was either a term of respect or, more likely, because Mr. Souder was terrible at remembering names. One day, Mr. Souder informed my class that a directive came from the office to have students create an illustration based on a reading assignment. (My art school did not offer any academic classes. That was the main reason I chose to enroll there.) He said, “The so-called ‘powers that be’ don’t think you people know how to read.” Then he glanced around the room and added, “You do know how to read, right?”
After I graduated, I ran into Mr. Souder a few times while visiting my art school for alumni events. Each time, I had to explain to him who I was. He always appeared to be happy to see me, even if he didn’t remember exactly who I was. And I always called him “Mr. Souder.”
Mr. Souder passed away in 2017 at the age of 91. I read in his online obituary that he was married for 61 years. He had three children, four grandchildren and a great-grandchild. He loved to draw and paint. He loved to travel. He loved to play handball, drink coffee and root for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Mr. Souder was a great teacher, a talented artist and a good guy.