This painting of the Owens-Thomas House is Wayne Chambers' newest work. The former Richmond, Va., artist can frequently be found painting en plein air around the city's squares and historic sites.

For more information Wayne Chambers' work can be seen at Carriage House gift shop, River Street Gallery and the Arts and Crafts Emporium, all in Savannah. For information about originals, commissions or lessons, call Chambers at (912) 663-5544. His gallery is located on the ground floor of his home, 108 W. Taylor St.

Artist Wayne Chambers sets up shop with a new gallery, studio and teaching space.

When Wayne Chambers was growing up in Crewe, Va., he mixed together house paint and called pieces of discarded cardboard his canvas. Being a professional artist wasn't really something he thought much about.

Instead, like so many of his peers, he went to work out of high school for Phillip Morris Co. as a laborer, hoisting tobacco baskets and dreaming of his art.

Soon though, his day job gave Chambers the opportunity to study art - at night. He fine-tuned his intuitive skills with classes and workshops and grew more and more talented. Still, he didn't give up his Phillip Morris job.

Now, 31 years later he has retired but by no means slowed down.

"I retired young, 51," Chambers said from his Taylor Street home and gallery. "I'm painting, taking piano and voice lessons," says the man who claims to have "never met a stranger."

And that's no doubt the unabashed truth. Chambers' fluid, expressive watercolors are attracting an audience in Savannah, just as his whirlwind personality and unrestrained demeanor draws people.

Chambers' relocation to Savannah from Richmond, Va., where he is still creating commissions for the merchant's association, is somewhat of a reinvention.

He was visiting here, painting en plein air at Monterey Square, when Mercer House resident Dorothy Kingery looked over his shoulder at his interpretation of her home. A friendship developed and Kingery anointed Chambers "artist-in-residence," putting his watercolors in her Carriage House gift shop. It was the foot in the door Chambers needed.

"This is a tourist town and the kind of place I had always dreamed of having a gallery and living above," Chamber explained. "So here I am."

Since then, Chambers has immersed himself here. Now represented by a handful of local galleries, he also joined the Savannah Art Association, where he conducted a recent workshop that drew as much praise for it content as it did its entertainment value.

"Don't be afraid of the darks," Chambers admonished his students. "Put those colors on there...here, take Wayne's hand and let him lead you through the dark," he cried.

Spouting his painting philosophy with the verve of a circuit-riding preacher, Chambers' own work shows he can practice what he preaches.

While earlier work was photo-realistic, Chambers now leans toward expressive interpretations, relying on suggestion and pure splashes of color to lend mood, light and shadow. Scenes range from Savannah favorites to interpretations of scenes conjured from trips to Maine and Venice.

But recently, you were as apt to find Chambers clutching an extension ladder as he painted the clapboards of his home - one step in a whole house makeover - as you were a watercolor brush. Still, surrounded by ongoing renovation, Chambers is working on new pieces and preparing to re-establish a regular series of painting classes from his studio and gallery.

Twenty minutes with Chambers and it's really not necessary for him to say: "This is the happiest time of my life."

It shows.