Morton Wendt Tucker Jr. was about 4 years old when he'd tag along with Dad to his grandfather's Hammond home, where the elder Tucker was doing remodeling work.

While his father worked, the young boy would pull out his grandpa's scrapbook and admire the photos in it, until he became bored and looked to do something else. Tucker Sr., hoping to keep his son occupied and out of trouble, pulled out a pad of paper.

"Here," he told his son. "Just draw something."

Tucker Jr. retrieved the scrapbook, took out a photo of an old steam engine, and drew it. Then he found other photos -- a truck, a car, scenery -- and drew those.

"I decided I really liked doing it," Tucker said. "I branched out."

Tucker eventually segued from drawing to painting while a student at Griffith High School. He put his artist brush down when he was 21 and didn't retrieve it until several years later after support from his wife, Kathy.

"She encouraged me to get back into it," he said.

Tucker is now a realist painter and the proprietor of The Gallery & Studio of Morton Wendt Tucker Jr., located at his home in Union Township. Tucker will host his third annual Open Studio Show at the end of the month, a show that'll offers guests the chance to "just walk in" to the normally open-by-appointment-only gallery and studio of the artist.

On display for patrons will be Tucker's unique pastel artwork, paintings that offer a narrative way of telling a story from several different points of view.

"I use natural images that represent a different metaphor," Tucker said. "You can look at these so many different ways. It's not just 'this is a nice picture,' something is being said."

Tucker usually paints in a series with overlapping themes. An element of a painting may repeat itself in another painting.

"It's complex but once you look at it as a whole, it's simple," he said.

Tucker, who incorporates the landscape and environment of Northwest Indiana in much of his work, is developing a new series of paintings entitled "Outside Lines." The first painting of the series, "Rear View," will be ready for viewing when the show opens, but can be seen a few days prior at www.artistsspace.org. Tucker hopes when people view it, as well as his other paintings, they won't just think it's a well-executed piece of work. Tucker hopes they ask him "what's behind it?"

"Don't just scratch the surface," he said. "Dig."