Imagine a society that values art so highly that it places artists close to the top of the financial food chain.

You could earn more than an engineer and more, even, than a doctor. You could live in the best neighborhoods and enjoy a constant demand for your work. You wouldn’t have to scramble for freelance jobs, and your paintings would be on display where thousands of people might see them every day.

Boris Zlotsky worked for more than a decade in just such a place. "I was making money and security for my family," he says.

Okay, there’s a bit of a down side...like giving up most of your creative instincts.

Every piece you do has to be reviewed and approved by a government council, which holds ultimate control over your art. And, what you paint has to follow the government’s ideological theme. If it doesn’t, it goes on a scrap heap and maybe you don’t get so much work afterward.

"I had to paint tons of portraits for the streets," Zlotsky says.

Back in the USSR during the ‘70s and ‘80s, though life as an artist provided money and security, it wasn’t exactly a dream job. Com-pared to the U.S., it was like living on another planet.

"I had to get special permission to use a Xerox," Zlotsky says. "Almost from the KGB. Now I own a color printer, which was almost unthinkable then."

Zlotsky managed to escape the Soviet Union and reach the U.S. in February of 1990, going through Austria and Italy. Arriving here, he did reach another world.

"When I came here for the first time, it was very strange," he says. "It wasn’t a shock; it was an adventure. I was born again at 35 when I came here."

The contrasts between this country and his were stunning. In the Soviet Union, there was no wide selection of paints — it was pretty much watercolor or gouache. The first time Zlotsky went to an art store in America, he says he was stunned by the selection. "In Russia, the problem was there was no choice. Here, there were too many choices. I saw things I couldn’t imagine would exist."

He also bought plenty of products he didn’t need or couldn’t use, he says. It was a small price for coming to the U.S.

Born in Kiev in 1955, Zlotsky grew up and worked during the really bad old days when the Cold War was in its deepest freeze. The government controlled everything, right down to his education.

His early artistic talent was evident at an earlier age than American kids enter grade school. "At five years old, I could do perspective. My drawings were not flat like most children would do. I didn’t see it as something amazing," he says.

That ability to draw in three dimensions prompted his mother to put him in a special school that taught artists. He was all of nine years old, and it was not what he wanted. He wanted to play music. "Sometimes I enjoyed drawing, but most of the time it was forced," he says.

Possibly because of his deep latent talent, Zlotsky chaffed under the dull repetition of the instruction. But that school enabled him to become an artist, according to the government, and opened up to him the kind of living that being an artist bought.

"I quit it. I couldn’t take it any longer," he says. "I couldn’t stand it. It was all so boring. All those cubes and pyramids."

He left when he was 13, but while he pursued his interest in music, he continued to draw, recreating movie scenes on paper.

By the time he finished the Soviet version of high school at 17, Zlotsky realized two things. He’d lost his interest in music, and he had to earn a living. "I had to make a decision on how I could make money. At the time, artists could do better than anybody.

"The Communist Party used art. Artists had more freedom. They could make as much money as they wanted. Engineers and doctors, they were all limited," he says.

With his talent, it seems like a no-brain choice. Zlotsky finished a four-year program for artists in three years. "It was almost like college," he says.

Graduation was essentially a way to earn permission from the government to be an artist.

With the diploma, Zlotsky became a commercial artist with basically one client — the government. There was no advertising industry in the Soviet Union because there was no competition among different products. For example, since there was only one type of car — manufactured, naturally, by the government — there was no need to create ads promoting it.

And, he says, you had to be loyal.

Still, he was able to make a good living by USSR standards. "The reason I left was not financial," he says. "We did all right."

There was, inevitably, the darker side to the Soviet version of a "worker’s paradise," a violent, threatening persecution of Jews that still thrives in the new Russia today.

Swastikas were painted on doors. The graves of his grandparents were destroyed. In Kiev, he couldn’t get some jobs because he was Jewish. At times he had to send his 10-year-old daughter away to keep her safe.

In 1990, he came to the U.S. and found an entirely different reception. For example, when he joined the American Society of Illustrators, "Nobody asked if I was Jewish," Zlotsky says. "For you, that’s normal but that wasn’t the case where I came from."

Before he came to this country, Zlotsky says he was a big fan of American pop culture, though he couldn’t openly buy or even see examples of it. "In Russia we couldn’t get records like the Beatles legally. It was all black market. I saw plenty of work of American illustrators and airbrushing."

In Russia, he and other artists quietly experimented with the airbrush. The government art council that approved work before it was displayed in museums or on the street had a dim view of the airbrush, he says. "The council had some old artists. To them, it was like witchcraft. It was medieval or cheating."

Like cars or most anything else in his country, there was only one choice of airbrush for artists, and Zlotsky still has the one manufactured in Leningrad. It doesn’t get much use. "Everything possible to do wrong in its construction was done wrong," he says. "It was impossible to use for illustration."

Combine a "lemon" of an airbrush with a lack of other equipment. The Russian artists used old refrigerator compressors that spit water and oil on nearly finished pieces. There was no such thing as frisket.

His first job in the U.S. retouching photographs was vastly different. "It was a real discovery. Everything was thought out so well. There was clean air, and it was filtered."

Zlotsky spent three years doing retouching, often teaching himself how to use the airbrush and devising ways to improve his work. "I used the airbrush in ways they hadn’t used before," he says. "I wasn’t trained. I had to discover new tricks. Some were quite productive."

At the same time, he continued to work on a portfolio and look for freelance work. "I was painting all the time after work in my basement that I rented," he says.

Finally, as photo retouching became a fading industry, Zlotsky got work doing a catalog for a small company that supplied commercial food equipment like ovens and refrigerators. But the company didn’t need a full time artist for its catalog, and he spent days hitting agencies for work before deciding to find an agent instead.

"I got some projects, but at the same time, I realized traveling and doing promotional work left no time to paint," he says.

His first job that came from the agent was a cover for a book published by Avon. He still works for them, mainly fantasy and science fiction. Unfortunately, book covers — though perhaps Zlotsky’s favorite commercial work — are not the most lucrative.

"I do it more for promotion; it’s not financially the best," he says.

He also does work for companies like Coca Cola, Campbell’s and Johnson & Johnson. He recently did post production for the movie "Toy Soldiers."

This highly eclectic mix of clients and assignments helps ensure that he stays busy, Zlotsky says, but creates some problems. "My forté and same time problem is there is no specific field I take assignments in. I might be doing a promotion for a beer company one day and the next day, science fiction.

"You have to be reborn each day," he says. "The art directors don’t care that yesterday you were doing marshmallows and now you’re doing space ships. There is no security."

Despite the variety of painting subjects, Zlotsky’s approach to his highly photorealistic work is the same. It starts with studying the subject, whether it’s a studio macquette of a monster from Toy Soldiers or a can of soda.

"I like to study my subject. I believe every subject has its own soul," he says. "To do photorealism, you can’t just use your experiences. You have to get under the skin."

That intense study includes photographs, computers — anything that will help reach Zlotsky’s ultimate goal, a highly photorealistic painting that doesn’t look like traditional airbrush work.

"I want to create the feeling it was not done by human hands," he says. "What I’m looking for is something that doesn’t look like an airbrush." To get that effect, he has to learn new tricks with every painting. "If it looks usual and everybody can tell how it’s done, I have to find a new way to get that effect."

For example, Zlotsky needed to paint marshmallows for an assignment from Post. He struggled to find a technique to create the look he wanted. "Marshmallows need to look soft," he says. "I spent a week looking for how to do it. Then one day I found it and in three hours, I had it.

"It’s the kind of illness they call perfection," he says.

Zlotsky begins with gessoed canvas — six or eight coats, sanded smooth. He wants a surface that lacks texture. That, he takes care of himself.

Then he applies liquid mask (Incredible White usually, but Windsor & Newton also works), using a brush, sponge, or stippling through an airbrush. There may not even be an expected design, and Zlotsky sometimes doesn’t even want one. "Most of my technique is planned accident," he says. "Sometimes you get an effect you didn’t expect."

That, of course, can be good or bad. But with the canvas, he can apply more gesso and paint over a mistake. He calls it an "undo" button.

With the mask applied, he sprays his base coat, sometimes using orange and blue to get a different shade of gray, then repeats the cycle of masking and spraying until he gets five to ten layers of paint.

"Then I start to sculpt the underpainting," he says. He uses a small electric eraser made by Sakura, which gives him a finer touch than a normal model to peel away some of those layers. "It’s perfect to make any kind of texture," he says.

Finally come the local colors, but Zlotsky handles those a bit differently, too. He uses five airbrushes loaded with paint. He says, "It looks like a pallet."

Zlotsky doesn’t just work with any old airbrush. One of his favorites among the assortment of makes and models is the Paasche AB. "It took me years to realize this is unbeatable and truly amazing," he says. "Unfortunately not many people use it."

Despite the praise for the AB, he still doesn’t accept the factory settings. He recuts and adjusts the needle. Acknowledging the AB can be cranky, he says you have to learn it like a musical instrument. "You have to listen to it," he says.

He mastered the AB and the other brushes enough to win prizes in Airbrush Action competitions for photo retouching and commercial art.

In the future, Zlotsky says he wants to do what other artists probably should try also. He wants to find as many ways to create images as possible. "No matter what tool you use — computers, camera, mirrors — it’s all worth trying," he says. "I’m using all the tools necessary for the image."

At one time, art directors craved digital until it was all they looked at, Zlotsky says. Now, they’re becoming more concerned with the image itself instead of the technique. "Every media that becomes over exposed becomes average," he says.

That quest is one reason Zlotsky tries to stay away from the traditional airbrush results. "It will look like a photograph, but you will feel something is added," he says.

TECH FILE:

Airbrush: Boris Zlotsky (right) usesan assortment of airbrushes: the Iwata CM-B, HP-B, HP-BE2, Olympus HP-1028. And the Paasche AB-L. "It’s not really right to use it just for gradations. It can produce anything nature can produce," he says. Air Compressor: Jun-Air Paints: Liquitex High Viscosity, Medea Comart and Createx. Media: Berol Prismacolor pencils, canvas with gesso and CS-10 board. Masking: Frisk Film and Incredible White Mask. Projector: Goodkin Lighting: Luxo Balanced Ventilation: Unlike too many other airbrush artists, Zlotsky uses and Enviracaire air filter. Other: Sakura electric eraser which can do finer work than a normal sized version and M Grumbacher brushes.

"At one time, art directors craved digital until it was all they looked at.
Every media that becomes overexposed becomes average."