oil painting – Page 9

Need a Logo? Three Free Options.

When I read other blogs/websites, one of the topics that’s always compelling is a real life “how to” experience, especially those that include the nasty bits of failure and how to adjust. Narcissism is, after all, rather unbecoming… UNLESS it’s so over the top AND on national television that everyone can see what a fool you are. But I digress.

I’ve recently changed the logo for the Impasto website. Did you notice? Deep down I feel this should have been an enjoyable exercise, but I have a short memory and forget how entirely bereft I am of logo design skills, which means I can get to an end result that’s pleasing, but for crying out loud it takes forever. My most recent relapse into logo design insanity was a good learning experience and something I think many of you might find elements of the process to be helpful, either as useful process tips or design excrement to avoid.

My approach to logo selection had a few baseline tenets. It had to be free, art related, and something that was personally meaningful. Ultimately I explored 3 paths:

Image Search: There are various images online that can be used for free, which would be a great option if I could find something that really resonates with my website. I found a few that would work, but then I had to worry about finding out if the image could be used legally, or track down the owner and ask for permission.

Customize Personal Photo: I had been using a cropped portion of an impasto style painting of my own making as my logo. I had grown tired of that image and out of context it was hard to tell what you’re looking at, even if you were an artist. I looked at a lot of my photos to see if there was a fresh look I could use, but nothing struck me. It might be there somewhere in my image library, but I didn’t find it.

Create a Custom Design: After exhausting the first 2 options, it occurred to me that I could create my own logo digitally. Pretty obvious choice given that I’m capable of drawing and painting after all! This is ultimately what I did, and whilst I’m not 100% satisfied with the end result, I feel like the spirit of my current artistic world is captured in the new logo. That said, I can almost guarantee that you’ll see many iterations of the logo over the coming months as I refine the artwork itself.

I created the logo on my iPad Pro using an app called Art Set 4 by LOFOPI. I use the free version (duh!) and am pretty happy with the overall usability. I’ve done a few dozen digital pieces of artwork using this method, but nothing very refined, rather it’s a convenient way to practice sketch or draft new compositions while watching TV – no graphite mess or paint to setup, so its very pragmatic.

Impasto’s New Logo – Dog Tail Painbrush

The logo is a dog’s tail that has a paintbrush head on the end. I used digital pastels to get a textured look to the tail. I feel the tail structure needs some refinement, perhaps some more pronounced tapering, and the white background is distracting, but overall I’m happy to use it as a working draft.

Once I had the digital artwork done on the app, which took a few tries, I zoomed in the view and took a screen shot. From this point all I had to do was upload the image into the WordPress media library and add it as my logo.

What do you think? Don’t hold back, I’d really like to make changes, and your insights would be helpful, so don’t hesitate to make your suggestions in the comments.

Thanks again for reading!

January 31, 2020January 30, 2020 by Bern Categories: Art Tips, dogs, iPadTags: animal, art, digital, dog, impasto, logo, oil painting, painting, rescue dog Leave a comment

Meteors and Squirrels

It’s been a couple months since I worked multiple pieces simultaneously. I like having the ability to bounce between works in progress for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that alternating allows me to shift gears and keep my focus fresh on the piece in front of me, rather than getting burnt out banging away on the same composition for multiple days. Thus far in 2020 I’ve been working on small pieces that don’t take a long time to finish, so I’ve not had the opportunity to work in parallel. Well, that changes this week, means blog updates will have more progress updates along the way and not necessarily include the finished product in a singular post.

Last week I started 2 new pieces. I’m still waiting for inspirational names, but for now we’ll call them Meteor Spray and Squirrel Dancing. Meteor Spray is an actual Mars meteor impact crater, which will be a mix of realism and abstraction. Compositionally I’m already excited, in large part because the splatter inspired block-in stage turned out to be damn near good enough to stand on it’s own as a monochromatic painting. The colors in the reference photo are wild, but might be tricky to replicate. The plan will also incorporate knife work and impasto to build up the texture of the Mars surface. This is a larger piece, oil on canvass board, 24″x30″.

Meteor Spray – Reference Photo

Meteor Spray – Block In

Back on planet Earth, Squirrel Dancing is a study more than a formal composition, at least for now. I want to improve my skills in painting dogs in motion, so the study will focus heavily on the body language of the dog in an effort to capture an element of motion that gives the piece intrigue. In the case of Squirrel Dancing, the focus is the dog ready to spring into action when the squirrel makes a move. I’ve included a couple of sketches that helped me get a handle on the composition structure. Based on these sketches, I opted for the zoomed out approach that captures the height and separation between the taunter and the taunted. The painting study is 6″x8″ oil on paper. Before painting Wolfy into the study I did a small practice version before committing it to the composition – see the picture with these side by side.

Squirrel Dance Reference Photo

Squirrel Dance Sketch 1

Dances with Squirrels – Sketch Study

Dog Practice Paint

Dances with Squirrels – Progress

I’ll keep working on these 2 pieces over the coming week. Stay tuned!

January 27, 2020January 27, 2020 by Bern Categories: Abstract, dogsTags: animal, art, dog, dogs, impasto, meteor, oil painting, space 3 Comments

Happy Hour – The Roosevelt

Happy Hour – The Roosevelt

Oil on board, 8″x6″

We’re returning to the still life series called Happy Hour. Cocktail #2 is hot off the easel and ready for your guesses. But first, time to reveal the answer to cocktail #1 from Happy Hour – Angostura… it was a Whiskey Old Fashioned! The Old Fashioned is one of the classic cocktails, but despite the simplicity of it’s composition, there are a number of subtle changes one can make in the base ingredients to create a wide range of variants. A very good recipe can be found here on PUNCH, my go to resource for all things cocktail. If you have a favorite riff on the Old Fashioned, please share in the comments!

Returning to Happy Hour – Roosevelt, the hints are few but specific. I excluded the city name from the napkin, but suffice to say it’s arguably the most important cocktail (and food) city in North America (although I defer to our Canadian readers for any challenges to this claim), birthplace of many classic libations. Any guesses? The answer will be revealed in the next cocktail series piece in a couple weeks.

The Roosevelt is another oil composition on an 8″x6″ gesso board. The type of cocktail glass is not something I would have tackled at this point, as it’s very complex and a bit beyond my comfort zone, but it was true to the cocktail, so I gave it a go. The other challenge was the color of the drink itself, a mix of cadmium red medium, cadmium yellow deep, titanium white and ultramarine blue; there are also some bits with cadmium yellow.

Next time I’ll pay more attention to the dark values in the drink itself, as I strayed from that tenet early on, getting a bit obsessed with trying to nail down the elusive pink/orange color of the drink. If you look at the block-in picture, it’s obvious that I knew there were very dark values in the drink itself, but I didn’t paint them in properly.

And beware the challenge of painting words, especially words with fancy letters… with lots of curves… on an undulating cocktail napkin! Definitely not something to do if you’re jacked up on caffeine – it requires a steady hand and a lot of patience. I had to make a big withdrawal from my limited Bank of Zen to get through it.

I was pleasantly surprised with the ease of doing the blurry, colored bar of illuminated bottles in the background. This is also true to the actual setting of The Roosevelt and a handy approach to call upon in future compositions.

Thanks for visiting and don’t forget to post your critiques and cocktail guesses in the comments!

Cocktail Sketch

Cocktail Block-In

Cocktail Base Colors

Cocktail Progression

Cocktail Background Bar

Cocktail Napkin

ROOSEVELT || 5″ x 7″ Oil on Board || $50

January 22, 2020January 22, 2020 by Bern Categories: Series - Happy Hour, still lifeTags: Abplanalp, art, bar, cocktail, impasto, oil painting, painting, Roosevelt 5 Comments

“Framecro” – Fast Framing on the Cheap!

Framing artwork used to be a dreaded task, but over the years I’ve come to really enjoy it. This is especially true as we start 2020 because I recently had 4 dog related pieces accepted to an Austin art show at Art for the People gallery called Celebrities – Pet & People Portraits. Future posts this week will provide more details about the show and the inspiration behind the pieces, but I wanted to share some creative custom framing ideas I used with 2 of the pieces in the show.

One of the troubling issues with framing is the commitment, secondarily the cost and complexity. The process of “properly” framing a painting often involves sealing it inside a frame in a way that makes getting it out an ordeal. When I hang finished art in my home, I can easily get bored of the frame after a year, or simply want to change the art that’s in the frame. To solve this problem, I came up with a Velcro based solution that works great with small pieces in floater frames, whereby you affix the piece with Velcro instead of glue or some other fixative, which allows you to swap out pieces in the same frame. This is handy for your personal art at home, gallery shows or events.

The steps to frame using Velcro, a process I’ve trademarked as “framecro“, are very simple, fast, and inexpensive. Let me know if you opt to framecro any of your paintings; improvements to the process are always welcome.

Most Velcro types will work, but the Command line of snap-type from 3M is what I prefer. They market it as a picture hanging velcro because it snaps together very tightly, but you can still pull it apart easily.
Cut 4 twin sets of velcro rectangles, which means you have 8 total rectangles of Velcro. These should be relatively small and easily fit into the 4 corners of the frame.
Affix the velcro to the corners of the frame and the corners of the back of the artwork.
Align the artwork and press it onto the frame.

You’re done! If you want to swap out a piece, just pop out the existing piece of art and press in a new one that has Velcro in it’s corners.

Velcro attached to corner of floater frame and corner of artwork

Oftentimes 2 of 4 cornes is sufficient for small pieces

Framecoed art looks professional and clean

January 20, 2020 by Bern Categories: Art TipsTags: Abplanalp, art, Bern, dog toy, dogs, floater frame, foster dog, frame, frameco, framing, oil painting, painting, Velcro 1 Comment

Yellow Ball with Tails

Yellow Ball with Tails

Oil on canvas board, 6″x8″

Sometimes you just know a composition is going to work, virtually able to paint itself. Yellow Ball with Tailswas exactly that kind of composition. Wolfgang and Zip loved this toy because the 2 tails made it tug-a-licious! As the designated thrower, I liked it because the ball made it easy to throw without getting dog slime all over my fingers. Ultimately, this toy stayed inside and lasted about 20 play sessions before parts started to get ripped off and chewed up.

I’ve recently made some adjustments to my still life setup, changing the platform so it’s higher and is at sitting eye level. This gives a new angle that’s easier for me to translate to the canvas.

This piece moved quickly and was done in a couple of sessions this week. As I stated earlier, this composition looked great from the start and I knew it was going to be a fun project when I saw all that bright yellow shredding dangling against that blue background. Definitely going to spend more time on compositional arrangement with future dog toy paintings.

The canvas board was ideal for this type of toy because it has a lot of toothy texture, which easily lends itself to the toy’s material. The only thing I don’t like about a canvas board for this type of piece is the fine detail of the threads. The canvas texture makes it very hard to paint a thin line, so I often had to do some back and forth with the darker background color to get the thread lines just right, basically painting back into the yellow thread line to reduce the width.

There’s a lot of yellow in this piece, and I did some experimentation:

Deep Yellow + Titanium White as the base for the mid-range yellows. Added Ultramarine Blue and Cadmium Red Light in small doses for the shadows on the ball.
Cadmium Lemon + Titanium White for the lighter areas.
Indian Yellow, which I don’t typically use often, here and there to vary the lighting along some of the longer sections of the tails.

The blue cloth was Ultramarine Blue and TW with variations of green made from Cad Yellow Deep and Cad Red Light.

Originally, I had included the tag on the toy, but once the piece was 90% done the tag looked too distracting and didn’t add a lot of value, so I took it out.

For those interested in the toy itself, it came from BarkBox, a monthly dog toy subscription service. Our dogs destroy toys, much to my artistic delight, so BarkBox has had to adjust what they send us to try and find toys that are good for tugging but also very durable. Supervised play is the best solution for our fur balls because once they’re done tugging, it turns into keep away, which devolves into a game of “I’m going to eat this so you can’t have it”. Somewhere between keep away and vindictive chewing is when I like to step in and save the toy. If I was going to rate this toy, it would go something like this (1-10 scale):

Tugability 8 – withstood some strong tug sessions between my large dogs (Zip 50 lbs, Wolfy 85 lbs )
Durability 6 – hard for a canvas toy to rate higher than a 7, so this is pretty good
Versatility 8 – this could have easily been used inside or outside, both for fetch or tug.
OVERALL 7

Yellow Ball with Tails - Dogs — Zip and Wolfgang – Dog Artists

Yellow Tail Ball - ref photo — Reference photo – *Yellow Ball with Tails*

Yellow Tail Ball block in — Block in of dog toy

Yellow Tail Ball 1 — Started with the yellows

Yellow Tail Ball 2 — First paint draft done

Yellow Tail Ball 4 — Fine details of shredded threads

Yellow Tail Ball Final — Finished *Yellow Ball with Tails* dog toy

January 16, 2020 by Bern Categories: Series - Dog Toys, still lifeTags: art, BarkBox, dog, dog toy, oil painting, rescue dog, still life, toy, Wolfgang, Zip Leave a comment

Zip’s Flowers

Zip’s Flowers: 20″x16″, oil on canvass

Sometimes art is very cathartic, but at times it can be maddening. However, I’ve learned over the years to rethink the frustration and consider those pull-my-hair-out-of-my-head moments as learning experiences, and more often than not it works. When I just can’t get a piece to work, either compositionally or from a technical skills perspective, if I focus on what I need to learn to fix it rather than become irritated at my shortcomings, I tend to get back that Zen painting zone.

Zip’s Flowers has been a long learning experience! Wars have taken less time to finish. That said, it’s chock full of newly acquired knowledge, of which I’m very excited about. There’s also some personal interest in terms of the background of this photo. This flower shop is a few blocks down the street from where I lived one summer in San Francisco. We lived in a great neighborhood along the border of the Mission and Castro districts, on 18th between Hartford and Noe. This flower shop, now called Urban Flowers, was along the way to the dog park. My wife would take the dogs at least once a day to the dog park. One day, the 1 year old puppy, Zip, decided smelling the flowers was no longer satisfying, so she opted to taste them. As the story goes, she reached out and grabbed a dangling flower from one of the pots and proceeded to knock the whole thing over! I wasn’t there, but my wife said the people at the shop were very friendly and weren’t concerned about Zip’s flower chomping. Of course I had to see this for myself, and a few days later I was walking Zip past this flower shop and sure enough, she tried to gobble down a basket of roses as we walked by.

The composition itself was probably the hardest hurdle to overcome, which I took license to adjust reality to make things work. The reference photo shows a wide variation of building colors and construction materials, so some adjustments had to be made on various fronts to make it look less contrived – ironically, the reality in the photo was too hard to believe in a painting. The values also had to be exaggerated to give depth and a sense of place, whereas the photo was very flat. Finally, the amount of tissue papered flowers was overwhelming and a bit distracting, so that was scaled back significantly.

My favorite part of this painting is the right foreground. First, the flowers in white paper came out much better than I had anticipated and they really frame that side of the painting. I also like the realism they add to the scene. Secondly, I’m very happy with the tall yellow sunflowers going up the stairs. These two elements combine to draw the viewer into the painting (hopefully) and consider wandering through the rest of the composition.

The sheer multitude of color is initially distracting for me, but once I stepped away from it for a day and returned to the completed piece, the colors were more welcoming and a source of excitement.

Do you like this piece? I’m guessing people either love it or hate it, given the colors and somewhat busy nature of the scene. Suggestions and observations are welcome.

Reference photo – Urban Flowers

Flower shop sketch

So many flowers!

Getting close

ZIP’S FLOWERS || 20″ x 16″ Oil on Canvass || $100

January 14, 2020January 20, 2020 by Bern Categories: Landscapes, Urban LandscapesTags: Abplanalp, art, dog, flower, impasto, landscape painting, oil painting, rescue dog, San Francisco 4 Comments

Happy Hour – Angostura

As the saying goes, “It’s happy hour somewhere in the world”, but seeing as it’s 10am here in Austin, a post about cocktails is about all I can muster.

HH Agostura 20200108 — “Happy Hour – Angostura”

This is a small piece, oil on board, 5″x7″. This is the first in a series I’m going to do over the course of this year called “Happy Hour”. I’m always trying to think of ways to make art creative and engaging, which can be done in a number of ways. Instructors and workshops will often stress composition and technical prowess, which is very important, but I consider that table stakes. What’s often missing is intrigue, of which I’m plenty guilty of excluding in my works. To get the interest piqued with the Happy Hour series, I’m not going to reveal the specific cocktail in the name of the piece or initial blog post. The intrigue is for the viewer to figure it out based on bartender savvy hints.

Take this initial piece, “Angostura”, which is very simple in terms of composition. What do you consider valid and helpful hints in the painting? When putting this together, I wanted to provide 3 hints that a savvy bartender – professional or simply someone like me with a well stocked bar at home – would be able to use to identify the drink. In this case, those hints are some, but not all of the ingredients, color of the cocktail, and glassware. Can you figure it out?

If you want some help, PUNCH is a fantastic libation focused publication that is a notch above pretty much everything else out there, at least as far as I’ve been able to find. Once you crack the mystery of “Angostura” (hint: think simplicity… I’m not being clever with this one), dive into PUNCH and see what I mean about great cocktail insights.

Maybe 2020 should be the year of artistic intrigue?

Agostura value rough in

Agostura Cocktail 2

Agostura Cocktail 3

ANGOSTURA || 5″ x 7″ Oil on Board || $50

January 9, 2020January 20, 2020 by Bern Categories: painting projects, Series - Happy Hour, still lifeTags: Abplanalp, angostura, art, Bern, bitters, happy hour, impasto, oil painting, painting 3 Comments

Yosemite – El Capitan

Started a new project this week, El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. This is a massive wall of rock that is a marvel to see in person. I haven’t been able to find them on the photo, but there are a number of climbers on the wall. If I hadn’t taken the picture myself I wouldn’t believe it either.

This composition is actually a study to get some key aspects of the hues and values figured out prior to doing a much larger piece. This particular effort is being done on a 12×18 canvass board, all oils, using palette knife only.

Figuring out the variations of grays, both sunlit and shaded, is proving to be an enjoyable challenge. This is a great way to really learn the subtleties of warm and cool grays.

Another session or two and this preliminary piece should be done. Still need to get the right half of the shadow area done, but it’s moving along at a faster clip now that the value scale has finally been figured out. There’s more paint on this piece than I’d like to admit.

El Capitan

April 11, 2016 by Bern Categories: Landscapes, painting projects, UncategorizedTags: art, el capitan, impasto, knife painting, landscape, oil, oil painting, painting, yosemite Leave a comment

Heceta Head Lighthouse

This was a fun one! This is Heceta Head Lighthouse on the Oregon Coast. Breathtaking coastline and this area is particularly rugged and beautiful. One day I’ll replicate this painting en plein air, but for this iteration I had to use a reference photo. At least the photo was taken by myself, so I had a sense for the place; hoping some of that personal experience made it into the final work.

This piece is on 12″x18″ gesso panel and took about 8 hours to complete. While I still have a couple of minor highlights to add, this is close enough to the final product to call it done. I have never painted ocean, so the waves were a challenge, but I’ve started taking some lessons with a new instructor for a few hours every other week, and she was a tremendous guide when I ran into problems. If you like landscapes, check out her work at Mary Watkins Fine Art.

The palette is what I’m most excited about with this piece. While there’s a lot of (for me) technical skills that come into play with the water/waves/rocks, it’s the hues that I’m most excited about. Mary was very instrumental in teaching me about landscape warming and cooling using hues I hadn’t considered. Previously I had thought in terms of strict color wheel compliments to adjust saturation, but I learned how to think through the balance of what makes up colors that trend towards one end of the spectrum or another. For example, the use of Lemon Yellow, Cad Yellow Medium, or Yellow Ochre was actually a critical decision for this entire piece. Can you guess the winner and why?

Reference photo and progression timeline below. Enjoy!

Reference photo – Heceta Head Lighthouse – August – 8pm

Value rough in

HECETA HEAD || 12″ x 16″ Oil on Board || $250

March 9, 2016 by Bern Categories: LandscapesTags: art, Coast, Hemet Head Lighthouse, impasto, landscape, Lighthouse, oil painting, Oregon, Pacific Ocean, painting, PCH Leave a comment

Lamar Bridge into Austin

Getting close to finishing this Austin urban landscape piece. The view is from the south across the river towards downtown. The city has grown a lot since this photo was taken, so those familiar with the area might wonder why I excluded some buildings; not the case, they just weren’t there a few years ago.

Oil on gesso board, mostly brush work, done in studio with photo reference (included below). The bridge was tricky, despite having done a couple of practice drawings. It’s been an exercise in patience, having to redo various parts, but it’s been a great “learner” piece, specifically with the sky and water. I’ve started taking some formal art lessons every other week, and my teacher gave some great guidance with the sky and the water reflections. Confidence with these elements is 10x what it was a month ago. Not sure if it comes through in the photos, but the colors are rich, probably a tad too saturated, but the values and reflections are solid enough to carry the composition.

The bridge needs some tweaks to the facade so it’s not so flat, the addition of cars on the road, and a few street lights. At that point I’ll call it done. One more short session should do the trick. I’ll post the final product this coming weekend.