Dam at Hill of Life Falls, AustinBlock InNice Day at the OfficeValue Contrasts!Not Bad for 90 Minutes
2024 will be the year of more en plein air! I love being outside painting in the field, but it does require getting up earlier, planning the night before, and a commitment regardless of the weather. This is a whole lot like camping, which I used to do all the time many years ago, so perhaps I just need to think of it as a short camping trip without sleeping on the hard ground.
I’ve finally made a return to this site after more than a year, which is kinda sad given it’s about a 20 minute hike out my front door. I’ve had a lot more practice since my last session (Breath of Plein Air) at this location, so I was excited to see how this study would compare to the previous work.
I opted for a profile perspective this time instead of landscape, as I feel that compositionally it just works better. The eyes are drawn down and up into the waterfall, the clar focal point of this work. The horizontal landscape can work, too, but I feel like it takes away from the expanse of the landscape, which flows naturally top to bottom. Structure is important, something I didn’t understand entirely when I tackled this last time.
I also split my board in half with blue tape, the intention being a return to this same spot later this month to build on what was learned from this session. I might play with this work a little more in the studio, but I’m more interested in developing experience and skills in the field, most notably improving value contrasts that really capture the outdoors, and secondarily developing a better palette that emphasizes atmospheric perspective.
This study lasted about 1.5 hours of actual painting, so I’m pleased with how much was done in that short timeframe. I’ll get out earlier next time – I started at 10am – and spend a full 3 hours and see how things turn out.
Following up from my recent post, “VeddEr”, which had a few hidden meanings, aka “easter eggs”, I thought it would be fun to share an article that illustrates some hidden bits in more notable artworks.
I scoured the interwebs for a few hours and compiled a list of famous paintings that have cleverly inserted easter eggs which go beyond mere subjective interpretations. For example, there’s a lot of blah blah out there about the Mona Lisa, that her enigmatic smile has sparked countless interpretations, with some suggesting it conceals secrets or represents the duality of human nature. Barf! Who cares about that outside of a Philosophy class. I want stuff that’s hidden and hard to find, cleverly inserted to entertain or make a point. To that end, I give you the first unofficial list of notable paintings with clever easter eggs.
The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci: In 2007, an Italian musician claimed to have found musical notes in the painting, creating 40-second musical composition. The notes are seen in the overlay in the photo below, whereby the notes are made up of the bread rolls and hands (both round things) of the attendees. Da Vinci was a musician himself, so there’s some further plausibility to this easter egg.
The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger: A seemingly ordinary portrait reveals an anamorphic skull when viewed from a certain angle, perhaps symbolizing the inevitability of death… or just a sick sense of humor in an age when laughs were at a premium for many. From Tim Schneider, “The center-bottom of the work harbors what at first appears to be an abstract smear of black and yellowish-gray. When viewed at an oblique angle from the right side of the painting, the skewed shape “corrects” to reveal an imposing skull—possibly Holbein’s reminder that death lies in wait even when it can be temporarily hidden by youth, earthly riches, and influence.” Or maybe he just had a sick sense of humor or played too much D&D!
The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck: Look closely at the mirror in the background, and you’ll spot the reflection of the artist himself, adding a layer of self-awareness to this iconic piece. Not to mention it’s one hell of a detail to bake into the painting, especially when you consider the rudimentary materials of the day.
The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo: Michelangelo was also an anatomist, apparently dissecting corpses to use as a basis for creating anatomical sketches. Point is he knew his anatomy, so in this piece in the Sistine Chapel, hidden within the robes of the figure of God and his gaggle of friends, one can see the shape is actually that of a brain, including the brain stem. That’s not an accident people! Some say this was his his way of poking at the church’s lack of respect for science.
Portrait of Bill Clinton by Nelson Shanks: In 2006, former U.S President Bill Clinton unveiled a portrait painted by John Nelson Shanks. The former President is depicted standing beside a mantel in the Oval Office. There doesn’t seem to be much out of whack here, but the artist admitted that he used a clever easter egg to hint at the infamous Lewinsky affair. According to Shanks – the actual artist – he subtly incorporated a shadow of a dress into the painting, assuredly the infamous blue dress of Monica Lewinsky that was the ultimate smoking gun.
The Madonna with Saint Giovannino by Domenico Ghirlandaio: This is perhaps my favorite because it incorporates UFOs way back in the day. Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Ghirlandaio painted The Madonna with Saint Giovannino in the 15th century, it incorporated a hidden gem from another world perhaps. The work portrays the Madonna with Jesus, a relatively unassuming piece typical of that time. However, upon closer inspection, it clearly has a UFO in the background! The UFO can be seen near Mary’s left shoulder, and while it looks less than aerodynamic, it has a lot of intentional details, and furthermore there is a guy on the ledge below it clearly staring at it, holding his hand up to shield the bright sun. So cool!
This was a commission piece for a friend, Jason, who had recently lost their beloved furry family member, Vedder. His wife, Alicia, reached out to me and wanted to have the piece done as a surprise. I knew the loss of Vedder was very difficult for both of them, having seen various remembrance posts from Jason on Facebook recently, it was clear this was a difficult time, so I wanted to make sure I got this right.
Alicia was extremely easy to work with, remaining very flexible in terms of what she wanted, essentially leaving most of the creative decisions up to me, saying she had confidence that whatever I created would be wonderful. At least that made one of us.
Then the pressure set in! This had to be perfection given the subject matter.
Ultimately I devised a number of possible compositions based on pictures and videos of Vedder, created sketches, and passed them along to Alicia for review. Thankfully her top 2 choices were the ones I wanted to paint the most.
I’m not a pet portrait expert, at least not at this point in my creative experience. That said, I have done a number of what I like to call “dogs in motion” pieces, so not having to tackle the task of Vedder’s face in detail was going to make this a lot easier.
There were a few compositional elements I wanted to bake into this piece. First and foremost, Vedder had to look like Vedder, even if his face was in profile, there’s still the challenge of getting his body just right. I wanted someone who knew Vedder to walk into the room where the painting was hanging and be able to tell at a distance “hey, that’s Vedder!” Secondly, the setting had to be his favorite excursion location, which was this unnamed rocky beach along the coast (they live in the Los Angeles area), and there had to be clear elements that made it recognizable as that beach. Lastly, I wanted to include “Easter Eggs” in the composition that would give the work more meaning and personalization for Jason and Alicia.
The initial block-in went well, despite the need to improvise the landscape a bit – the natural rocky jetty wasn’t in the same view as Vedder in photos, but it was an integral element of the beach, so it had to be included. The initial draft of Vedder’s silhouette was a lot more difficult, having gone through at least 10 variations before landing on the final version. I also made the decision to incorporate a calmer ocean than what was typically in the reference photos, which often featured a very active surf.
The most difficult technical challenges were the very black coat of Vedder, and the !*$king sand! First, the sand…
I’ll need to do a number of seascapes featuring beaches this year so I can capitalize on the lessons learned with sand. First, sand apparently comes in a wide range of colors, none of which you recognize until you try to paint said granules. I thought there was simply dry sand (light brown) and dark sand (dark brown). This is not the case. For the record, a beach full of sand has an infinite number of value and color gradations. Suffice to say it worked out, but I have a newfound appreciation for professional painters who incorporate footprints along the beach.
The biggest challenge, as expected, was Vedder. Getting the shape right, and I hope it is (you’d have to ask Jason and Alicia), wasn’t too bad, but trying to get the black hair to pop on the canvas and work the reflection of the sun on his coat, well that took some experimentation. Ultimately it came down to the magic of alternating warm and cool blues. I also incorporated a lot of knife work so there was some texture to his coat, as well as some fine brush work on the edges so he looked wet. When I asked Alicia what Vedder likes to do at the beach, thinking I could incorporate a ball, stick or frisbee into the artwork, she said “he just likes to run around”, or something to that effect. He was simply a happy, energetic, loving dog!
As to the Easter Eggs, namely hidden references in the artwork, I like to use these in commission pieces because it adds personalization and helps lend meaning to the work. The trick is to not do too many, keep them simple, and above all else, don’t compromise the quality of the art. In the case of VEDDER, I incorporated 3 Easter Eggs, two of which I’ll share here. First, Vedder’s paws create a rainbow reflection in the sheen of the water, representing the Rainbow Bridge. This element is designed to be subtle and not something you notice until you look very closely at the artwork. The other Easter Egg can be seen in the rocky peninsula. If you turn the painting upside down, reading left to right are the letters “VeddEr”. They’re not easy to see at first, but the intent is to make it hard to find initially, but then it’s impossible to look at the painting and not see them going forward.
Overall I’m very happy with how this piece turned out. More importantly, Jason and Alicia loved it, at least that’s what they told me. Haha! All kidding aside, the fact that I got a text from Jason with a picture of him holding the painting with a huge smile on his face was all the thanks I needed.
I’m very excited to be included in a new exhibition called “IMPRESSIONS: Paintings by the artists of Plein Air Austin”, happening at The Hive in Bee Caves, TX. This show celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Impressionist painters. If you don’t know much about the Impressionists, even if you don’t like the style (weirdo!), the history is fascinating.
In short, the movement, as it were, was actually facilitated by an American painter, John Rand, who in 1841 invented… wait for it… paint in a tube! Over the following years, some artists started to take their hobby outdoors (thanks to their tubes of paint) and began capturing the scenes of the world around them, a major break from compositional structures of the time, and emphasizing light and color to give a sense of place.
The debut party for the Impressionists is what’s marked as the anniversary, which occurred in 1874 in Paris at a show called “The Cooperative and Anonymous Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers”. This group of arty-farty rebels included some of the (now) most recognizable names of the art world, including Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas and Cézanne.
One final fun fact. The term “Impressionists” was initially an insulting critique from the press, who hated the style, calling one of Monet’s paintings “Impression, Sunrise” and comparing it to wallpaper.
Back to the opening, where 6 of my pieces will be included in this fantastic group show of plein air works. Opening reception will be Saturday, April 6th, 2-4pm. Swing by if you’re so inclined and meet some artists who love the outdoors and have created some amazeballs artwork! Let me know if you plan to drop by and I’ll keep an eye out for you.
COMMONS FORD RANCH BARN | Oil on Board | 9×12″ FISHERMANS POINT | Oil on Board | 9×12″ BREAKWATER MARINA | Oil on Canvas Board | 8×10″ SPRING POINT LIGHTHOUSE 1 | Oil on Canvas Board | 9×12″SPRING POINT LIGHTHOUSE 2 | Mixed Media on Board | 10×8″ GREENWICH VIEW | Oil on Canvas | 20×16″ 6 Paintings in IMPRESSIONS Show
Painting and the creative process has always been a zen-zone for me, even on days when the paint just won’t line up right! When life decides to punch you in the face, painting can be calming, even downright cathartic.
Our beloved pup, Zip – aka “Zippy”, “Zipster”, “Zipper”, “Toot”, “The Pip” and dozens of other nicknames – took her trip to the Rainbow Bridge a couple months ago. She was a HUGE personality, the boss of any space she occupied, and a precious family member who will be forever in our hearts. She loved food, playing ball, car rides, hikes, and she even enjoyed the occasional trip with me into the landscape to paint “en plein air”. But more than anything in the world, she loved to swim, especially if a stick was involved. ZIP TOOT is a nod to her larger than life personality doing what she loved more than anything else.
As to the artwork itself, this is another foray with spackle, but leveraging the unique opportunity to create textures that simply can’t be done in oil paint – at least not by me. The spackle was laid down in multiple layers, oftentimes so thick that it created a lot of cracking when it dried, which actually played well with the subject matter. Once the shape of the tail was done, I used a dark gray layer (almost black) as the base, then textured in lighter grays and whites. The effect is to give the impression of various hair colors intermixed, even in the areas that are dominated by black or white. Zip was a spotty dog, so getting this right was tricky, but manipulating the spackle while it was still soft made for an effective outcome.
The final step was going back in with acrylic paint to make the entire tail look more vibrant, which is a weird comment given we’re dealing with black, white and grays. The background is intended to represent her swimming days, the last of which were on Lake Austin at a boat ramp next to Mozart’s Coffee. If you look closely you can see some blue glittery bits splashed around the tip of her tail, reminding me of her need to shake thoroughly between throws and her all-out rush back into the water to recover her favorite stick.
Go play with your dog cuz the stick won’t throw itself.
This is my first composition of an old barn and it was an absolute blast! I came across this barn exploring a metro park near my home called Commons Ford Ranch. My initial goal was to simply find a new place to explore with my dog, and I was surprised to find this metro park on the map near my home, of which I’ve lived in for decades.
Commons Ford Ranch parkland was donated by Bradley and Wooley, Inc. in 1983, but the historic buildings, including the barn, were from the Resaca Ranch, which was a working cattle ranch in the early 20th century. If you live in the Austin area, I strongly suggest exploring this small park, which has riverfront, hiking trails, and obviously historical elements to enjoy.
After my plein air recon visit with Wolfy, I returned a few days later to do some quick field sketching. Having no experience with barns, I took some time back in the studio doing a more formal drawing, trying to figure out how best to simplify the elements of the barn and ensure I could get the whacky angles figured out. When I finished the drawing I realized the better angle was going to be from the other side of the barn because the tree was a distraction no matter where I put it, seemingly popping out of the barn like a jack-in-the-box gone wrong. But this is why we do sketches and practice drawings, right?
I spent about 3 hours painting on-site the following week. The weather cooperated for the first 90 minutes, then the clouds rolled in, which threw off some of the preferred lighting. Luckily I took a few reference photos when I first setup and was able to use those back in the studio. I really focused my plein air session on highly contrasting values, something I feel would help improve the realistic nature of my landscapes.
The studio work went very quickly, which I’m convinced was due to the strength of the values throughout the piece. I was able to convey a more realistic composition with depth. At least that’s my impression. The most tricky bits, which were honestly a bit maddening, were determining the colors for the wood. The gray of the actual barn wasn’t going to make for a very interesting painting, so I went with 20 versions of reddish brown. I used almost exclusively painting knives for the barn, finding ways to maximize wet-on-wet technique to get swirls and variations in the wood panels, giving them (hopefully) a more aged look. Lastly, using the edge of the painting knife, I applied somewhat random crisp black lines to get a more realistic look to the slats and slight gaps between the wood.
The addition of wildflowers was a suggestion from my wife, which I think adds a nice pop of central Texas spring to the piece. These were also done with a knife, using scraping and splotching techniques.
Overall, the Commons Ford Ranch Barn was a great introduction to this type of landscape feature that lends itself nicely to en plein air.
My recent foray into mixed media, courtesy of plaster and acrylic, has opened up a new perspective for my still life compositions. A good place to start was with my favorite adult beverage, a tasty Porter.
This is a very small composition, 4×4”, but in large part thanks to the 3D-ish impact of the thick plaster, it has a lot textual appeal. I did this without a reference photo, or beer model for that matter, going from memory of similarly themed past paintings. This one is most notably related to Last Sip, but oddly enough it was infinitely easier to create for a couple of reasons. First, the smaller size makes things go much faster. But more notably, the use of colored plaster and the simplicity of the subject make for a quick creation.
I might have just gotten lucky, too, and nailed it on the first try.
I might return to this specific piece and do some direct painting using acrylics on the plaster, which would add more vibrancy and get rid of the slight chalky effect.
This is project #2 from the aforementioned Textured Painting workshop at The Contemporary at Laguna Gloria. This was a real Bob Ross experience, as my original plan was to simply experiment with texture and some pottery tools to see how they manipulated the joint compound, as well as experiment on canvas board with my newfound medium. Lo and behold, I discovered ski tracks in the snow – an abstract painting exploration turned “real” composition.
The coloring of the snow is actually tinged with yellow and muted with purple, which is very hard to see in the photos. The first step was to paint the canvas panel all black, let it dry, then cover it with the off-white spackle. The pottery tool was some kind of metal prong with a very small, circular tip. Dragging this tool through the soft spackle exposed the black board underneath, sometimes closing back up over itself in the thicker sections, much like skiing through fresh snow.
On day 2, after the initial spackle had dried, using a water spritzer, I applied some kind of sparkly dust provided in the instructor’s box of goodies, which created a very cool reflective effect, like sun on snow. The last step was to apply a sky-blue acrylic mix to some of the wider tracks, which added color and the effect of the sky reflected in the snow.
Overall, I’m very happy with this abstract turned ski tracks realism piece. I think it would be a very marketable piece, too, at a larger size in a black frame for someone who loves skiing. Thank you, Bob Ross!
Virtual FrameFresh Tracks ZoomTextureTexture, Sparkles, and Blues
SPRING POINT LEDGE LIGHTHOUSE 2 | Mixed Media on Wood | 8×10″
I recently attended a 2-day workshop at The Contemporary at Laguna Gloria. The focus was textured painting, which ultimately boiled down to playing with joint compound (gypsum spackle) and acrylic paint. I was amazed at how easy and fun it was to adapt to this medium.The technique is very straightforward, whereby one mixes acrylic paints into the joint compound, which is an off-white, and do whatever you want provided it’s put on a hard surface, for which I used wooden boards.
Most of the class did abstract pieces, which make sense as you get to play with pottery tools to get cool shapes and textures. It’s very forgiving, too, because you can simply wipe it off and start over again provided you don’t wait more than a day, at which point it hardens. I chose to do still life and landscape pieces, taking advantage of the impasto nature of the spackle. The instructor said she hadn’t considered doing landscape compositions with this technique, but to me it seemed intuitively suited for the textural nature of the real world.
I intend to add some vibrancy to this composition with acrylic paint… I think. This is definitely the start of a new and exciting medium! Stay tuned for a number of new pieces in spackle and acrylics.
I have the good fortune of 7 of my paintings being included at Austin Fine Art Gallery’s annual holiday group show of small arwtorks called “small WONDERS”! All works are framed and ready to go on your walls, or, given their relatively small size, they’re easy to ship to friends and family who might appreciate authentic art from an Austin artist.
BLACK LAB | Graphite on Paper | 11×13″
BULL CREEK, AUSTIN | Oil on Board | 6×8″
DOG TIRED | Oil on Board | 16×12″
JUST THE RIPE SIZE | Oil on Panel | 5×7″
SPRING POINT LEDGE LIGHTHOUSE | Oil on Board | 8×6″
POPCORN | Oil on Canvas | 14×11″
SOMETHING BLUE | Oil on Board | 12×9″
Small WONDERS will consist of over 300 mini works by over 35 greater Austin artists, ranging from 5×7’s to 16×20’s. Everything will be PRICED to GIFT with prices ranging from $100 to $600. Don’t miss this wonderful show to start or add to an art collection for you and your loved ones!There will be an opening reception on Saturday, December 9th from 4-7pm. There will be holiday treats, drinks and live music during the opening reception. The show runs through early January.
For more information about the gallery and this show specifically, go to www.artframingservices.com, navigate to the “small WONDERS” show announcement, and consider dropping by for some holiday cheer and say hi during the opening reception.
Artists showing include:
BERN ABPLANALP UMBREEN AHMAD TOM BENTLEY VICKI BREVELL TAMMY BROWN HOLLY CRAIG ALAN EHRLICH PAT FLATHOUSE ANN FLEMINGS JULIA FLETCHER SALLY FRASER OLGA GORALEWICZ LACY HUSMANN JESSICA GREENWOOD PING IRVIN CRAIG IRVIN CHRISTINE JAMES CAROLYN KILDAY MELISSA KOTZEV SCOTT LEOPOLD MARCH MATTINGLY LINDA MONTIGNANI M MURDOCK EDD OGDEN NANCY PATON RICARDO ROBLES JOYCELYN SCHEDLER ANASTASIA SHIMANSKAYA CELESTE SMITH CONNIE TAYLOR MINDEN TEN EYCK LILIANA VASQUEZ LINDA WELLS JOHN WEST ELIZABETH WILSON WALKER WINN RENEE WOMACK
Art Bern 