ART : Dated, but in a Good Way : Neil Boyle has dropped most of his commercial illustration work to do his painting. But he’s kept one longtime job: the Rand Corp. calendar.

WESTLAKE VILLAGE — Neil Boyle doesn’t take himself or his work too seriously. Ask him why he teaches at the California Art Institute (not to be confused with California Institute of the Arts--CalArts--in Valencia) and he says, “I have access to the models, and I get to do what I want to do.”

On why he decided to forsake almost all commercial illustration work to do his own painting: “I finally figured out my clients were dead, in jail or retired,” said Boyle, who is 64.

But one of his clients keeps on going. Each year since 1962, the Rand Corp., the research think tank in Santa Monica, has engaged Boyle to illustrate a company calendar. Each calendar month presents a Boyle image of a scientist, philosopher, artist, government official, social activist, writer, actor or sports figure, along with a quotation from the person pictured.

Boyle has done more than 400 illustrations for the calendars. More than 100 of them are on view in the halls of the California Art Institute. Mark Twain, Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt share wall space with baseball great Satchel Paige, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Dwight Eisenhower, William Faulkner, Bertrand Russell and Virginia Woolf.

Some of his subjects are more famous than others. Even Boyle has trouble recalling the identities of the less prominent public figures.

“All of them are dead, every damn one of them,” he said. “Some of them appear quite regularly--Bertrand Russell, Churchill, John Kennedy. They are predominantly men.”

Boyle is among about a dozen instructors beginning a new schedule of 12-week classes next week. He will teach two painting sessions and one drawing session.

A self-described “card-carrying Canadian,” he has been drawing since he was 6. “My Dad had a movie theater in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada. I used to draw on the back of movie posters,” he said.

In Fort Macleod, population 3,000 or so, Boyle became the town’s designated artist before he finished high school. He drew posters that promoted community dances and Lion’s Club activities, and painted signs on windows at Christmas.

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Although he did not have a high school diploma, he submitted a portfolio of his drawings to Los Angeles’ Art Center College of Design, which accepted him into its illustration program in 1951. After three years, he received a degree in illustration from Art Center, and returned to Canada to spend a year working in Edmonton.

He then came back to Los Angeles to attend Chouinard Art Institute. As a student there, he worked for two art studios, doing record album covers for one and drawing Walt Disney character images for commercial products for the other.

During his years as a commercial illustrator, he drew for Capitol Records, the Saturday Evening Post, Reader’s Digest and Westways magazine. Four of his paintings were selected for the 1975 U.S. Bicentennial Commemorative Stamp Series “Contributors to the Cause.”

Today, rather than doing commercial work, Boyle prefers to paint images of the Old West, particularly portraits of Native Americans and scenes in barrooms and houses of ill repute. He calls this work “illustration with a frame around it.”

“Illustration tells a story or sells a product. I tell stories,” he said.

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WHERE AND WHEN

What: “Neil Boyle, Rand Illustrations.”

Location: California Art Institute, 2977 Willow Lane, Westlake Village.

Hours: Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Ends Sept. 1.

Call: (805) 496-6906.