National TV Exposure Enters Picture for Artist : Watercolorist’s 13-Week Series, Produced by Coastline College, Debuts Today

In the modern world of public television, art and commerce go hand in hand, if not hand in glove.

Ask Timothy J. Clark, the Capistrano Beach artist whose 13-week series, “Focus on Watercolor,” debuts today on public television stations around the country. The series, as well as an earlier group of half-hour programs that compose a community college telecourse, has already aired locally on Orange County public station KOCE, Channel 50.

A popular teacher at Coastline Community College headquartered in Fountain Valley and a successful area artist whose reputation already extends beyond Southern California, the 37-year-old Clark is now poised to reach a national audience--and market--with his easygoing approach to instruction and his easy-on-the-eye art.

The series, produced by the college, is underwritten by fine arts publisher Watson-Guptill, which also publishes the $27.50 book written by Clark as a companion volume to the program. Paints, paper and brushes were provided--with screen credits--by major art suppliers.

While many artists, writers, educators and hobbyists attempt to turn their vision into public television, comparatively few are able to navigate the tricky course. But Clark succeeded by making the increasingly vital connection between art and business.

“It’s not easy to get one of these things off the ground,” said Leslie Purdy, executive producer of the series and director of alternative learning systems at Coastline. “We’re real pleased at how this is taking off.”

In a recent interview, Clark acknowledged that the publisher’s involvement was a critical factor. “It was a very good merging of commerce, art, education and entertainment,” Clark said.

“The criteria here is not entirely economics, but that’s a big part of it,” said Glenn Heffernan, vice president/publisher of Watson-Guptill, in a telephone interview from New York.

Clark’s instructional method also figured into the equation, Heffernan said. “He has a refreshing approach to teaching watercolor. It’s structured in a way that’s different from what’s been broadcast or cable-cast. It’s based on principles of seeing and drawing--that’s what sets it apart. He builds upon these principles with each successive episode. It’s not just copying.”

While neither Clark nor Heffernan is ready to predict how successful the match will be, both hope for some of the response provoked by similar efforts.

From “Sesame Street” to “Cooking With Julia Child,” “The Ascent of Man” to “This Old House,” numerous cottage industries have been launched via public television, which attracts an audience that reads as well as watches TV.

Around the country, the formula varies for creating such packages. Quite frequently--as in Clark’s case--nonprofit stations or groups of stations absorb the initial cost of launching a series. Increasingly, however, promising series are then picked up and underwritten by companies desirous of having their corporate image identified with (and, hopefully, enhanced by) the subject matter, through prominent mentions of their sponsorship.

Production costs are further recouped for underwriters and stations through the sales of companion books and tapes, which are pictured at the conclusion of each episode, in what is known in the trade as “the beauty shot,” along with an address and telephone number.

Not all series that make it to PBS from outside the Boston-Washington corridor capture the national fancy, but some of the most unlikely and fanciful do, often by emphasizing local color.

Tim Clark’s idea for a series was much more conventional than most, following on the heels of at least a dozen other instructional art series.

Even as a student at Santa Ana’s Mater Dei High School in the 1960s, Clark said he was making good money at Disneyland sketching “kids from Des Moines sucking on a banana.” His art paid his way through studies at Southern California institutions including the Art Center College of Design and Otis Art Institute, Chouinard Art Institute and the California Institute of the Arts, where he earned a BFA, and Cal State Long Beach, where he received a master’s degree in art education.

Originally interested in oils, Clark said he was attracted to watercolor by the “convenience and spontaneity” of the genre, which enabled him to paint and still travel light.

When at home, Clark works at a tiny studio near the house he shares with his wife of 16 years, Regina Clark, a sculptor, and his three daughters. In one of the series’ episodes, Clark paints daughter Katherine, who can be heard singing softly to herself off-camera as her father explains the use of shadows on a face.

Much of Clark’s work is strongly reflective of Orange County and California, including scenes of Shaw’s Cove in Laguna, Sherman Library and Gardens in Corona del Mar--where one episode was shot on location--and Yosemite. Among the most popular is a series of lush, patio gardens. The price of his work now ranges from several hundred to several thousand dollars, but he also produces less-expensive posters and signed and numbered serigraphs.

Clark’s “real studio,” he says, is the large canvas bag he fills with art supplies when he travels. In addition to his California scenes, the book features work from an extended trip to Europe that Clark took with his family.

“Many artists are frustrated by the surprises that watercolor presents to them,” Clark wrote in American Artist magazine in 1984. Seeing that frustration led Clark to believe that there might be a mass market for watercolor instruction.

After years of steady commercial success with watercolor after college, the American Artist article brought him into contact with Glenn Heffernan, then publisher of the magazine. American Artist, like Watson-Guptill, is owned by Billboard Publications. Heffernan was impressed by Clark’s approach to instruction and, by coincidence, was at the same time developing an interest in television production.

Clark’s job at Coastline Community College got him interested in using television as a teaching medium, so he started work on a series. His criteria, like his genteel, realistic images, were simple.

“I wanted it not to be a silly program,” he said. “I wanted it to be entertaining, but I also wanted it to be about the real elements that artists deal with.”

As it turned out, Clark said, “I was as comfortable in front of the camera as I was in front of the classroom.”

Nonetheless, Clark experienced a number of detours and false starts with KOCE and other potential sponsors from the art world.

Ultimately, Heffernan chose one of Clark’s pilot tapes over dozens of similar efforts submitted to the publisher by other hopeful artists and teachers. He commissioned the book and decided to back a 13-episode series. A videocassette, with material not included in the series, is also now in the works from Watson-Guptill.

The publishing executive said he calculated--with considerable precision--exactly how many copies the company would need to sell in order to be able to underwrite the series.

“The book has to stand alone to make the series viable,” he explained. With sales moving at an acceptable pace, “we funded the development people and ultimately the taping and editing.”

KOCE then offered the series at no cost to Pacific Mountain Network in Denver, one of four regional networks of public television stations that feeds the entire national system.

“We felt it was good technical quality and it would have a high national audience,” said Sharyl Noyce, a spokesperson for the network. “So we elected to distribute it for them. We have informed all of the stations nationwide. We’ve always had extremely good luck with painting series. . . . Painting series on public television are so big.”

Noyce said that in the past, more than 75 stations around the country have picked up such series and that she expected that “at least that many, if not more” will take this one. There is no set time or day that the series will air. The program is not scheduled to air on Los Angeles PBS station KCET, Channel 28, at least through January, a programming spokeswoman said.

Besides the American PBS stations that have access to the program, earlier this week KOCE officials were told that the series will also be aired by TV Ontario, one of Canada’s major public systems.

Most of Clark’s series was shot on a studio set at Coastline College. When not speaking directly to the camera, his words are illustrated by shots of his subject, his palette and--from over his shoulder--of his painting technique.

Between 10,000 and 12,000 copies of “Focus on Watercolor’s” 20,000-copy first printing have been sold so far, according to Heffernan. But calls to more than a dozen local bookstores and art supply houses in the Orange County area failed to turn up a single copy.

The rest are with distributors or in the company’s warehouse, Heffernan said, “and I can turn on the presses and print more if the series gets a good enough response.”

“Focus on Watercolor” airs locally on Mondays and Wednesdays at 5 p.m. on KOCE, Channel 50.