Meet the Dallas artist who paints Huge Tex yearly

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) — Huge Tex lastly arrived in Truthful Park on Friday, bringing a flurry of people that gathered to look at. 

However within the crowd, you will discover one North Texan not targeted on Huge Tex in any respect. The true one anyway. 

Eric Hansen is a Dallas positive artist who spends each Friday earlier than the honest stay portray the icon as he’s lifted into the air. 

He focuses on the strokes of his brush to make Huge Tex seem as pleasant on canvas as he does in actual life. 

“I need them to see a liveliness that is there,” Hansen stated. “He isn’t an actual particular person, however he has a persona that folks assign to him, plus his voice and all that. 

Eric has painted a number of recognizable North Texas landmarks for the final decade. 

However about 5 years in the past, he wandered out to Truthful Park on the identical day as Huge Tex’s arrange, simply to watch.

 “And after I received on the market, there was like 100, or 200 folks simply hanging round and ready for him. I had no concept it was like this. And I believed, ‘Effectively that is nice, all these individuals who love this icon I paint.””

He confirmed up once more in 2018. In 2020, he had the possibility to color Huge Tex another way.

“They discovered a scratch on his hand. And the employees stated, ‘Hey you might have paint, what you are doing. Are you able to contact up his hand for us?’ In order that was sort of enjoyable, simply to have completed it.”

Now, his Huge Tex paintings is a practice. You will discover he at all times makes use of the identical 11 colours. It is a staple in his work, as are daring figures.

“I like a superb silhouette. Ideally, I like my topic of my work to be acknowledged simply by the silhouette.”

However most of all, “I like being generally known as somebody who Paints issues which might be acquainted to folks. Issues that folks have an emotional attachment to. Folks have a whole lot of satisfaction, residing right here in North Texas. I like serving to them show that satisfaction. I like being part of that.”

This yr, Hansen is being acknowledged as the primary official Huge Tex portrait painter of the State Truthful of Texas. 

It means this yr, the state honest of Texas will personal his portray. 

Annually, the State Truthful will select a special artist to color huge Tex. 

The plan is to create an artwork gallery of all of the work for the general public to get pleasure from. 

Yow will discover extra of Eric’s paintings on his web site.