Tag: painting

Breath of Plein Air!

HOL Dam Falls | 7” x 5” | Oil on Canvas Board

One of my 2022 art-related resolutions is to do more plein air work. I’ve managed to log a couple of days in the field near my house to start the year; this is the first of those sessions. 


There is a trailhead in my neighborhood to the Barton Creek Greenbelt called the Hill of Life (HOL). At the bottom of the HOL (about 1/2 mile long and 300′ elevation drop) is Barton Creek, which is the source of these falls, unofficially called the HOL Falls. Over the past few years, however, due to the massive growth in Austin’s population (I’m lookin’ at you California and Florida), endless festival cycle, and general obsession the world seems to have with Austin, this area has been overrun and trashed with douchebags and idiots who are obsessed with Instagram selfies at the swimming holes along the creek. But I digress…


On weekday mornings, however, there is a respite from the obnoxious, disrespectful throngs and I can enjoy the greenbelt as it was intended. On this day I set up along the creek bank about 100 yards downstream from the falls. I made the aesthetic decision to represent a more springtime landscape, namely all the green trees in the background, but the remainder of the scene is accurate. 


It was a gorgeous morning with a very light wind. The sun was a little obscured by high clouds, but there were enough moments when it peeked through that I got a good read on shadows and value contrasts. Plein air session are always entertaining because something unplanned invariably happens – wind blew my trash bag up and onto my paints, tall reeds also brushed against my painting in the breeze a few times (nature’s paintbrush I suppose), and of course I forgot a wet canvas holder so I had to MacGyver a packing solution for the hike home. 


Overall I’m happy with the outcome, but the greens and atmospheric perspective are off. I’d like to get to the point where my plein air has a sense of place like Laurel Daniel, but that’s going to take a lot more practice… which I don’t mind given how fun it is to paint outdoors! 


Thanks for reading!


#artbern #berntx #crashboomzip #painting #art #abplanalp #austinartists #pleinairaustin #hilloflife #HOL #bartonsprings #closetheHOLtrailhead #sosalliance

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New Show – ART SPREE at Art for the People Gallery!

The very fun, energetic and popular Austin art gallery, Art for the People Gallery, will include 3 of my pieces in the new show called ART SPREE! The show runs from January 29th – April 9th, 2022.

  • Airstream
  • Last Sip
  • Puppy Butts!

It’s always an honor to work with Lynnie, Hallie and of course, Charm Charm Sparkles and Tassel PomPom. Unfortunately the in-person opening reception for February had to be cancelled – damn you COVID! – but the gallery is open regular hours and the staff is as warm and welcoming as ever, so swing by if you’re in Austin and check out the art.

I’ve written blog posts about all of these pieces, but as a grouping they do a pretty good job representing me and my world. Airstream is clear nod to my love of travel (no, I don’t own an Airstream, but I know some very cool people who do); anyone who knows me can attest to my love of beer, especially a tasty porter as represented in Last Sip; and lastly, Puppy Butts! for my adoration of dogs and all they can bring to the world.

If you’re interested in any of these pieces, or anything in the ART SPREE show, you can also browse and shop using their online store. From the Art for the People Gallery store go to Shop > ART GALLERY – All Original Artwork > ART SPREE – Exhibition. I can attest that Lynnie and the AFTPG staff will do an excellent job fielding questions and making any purchasing seamless and fun.

Thanks for reading!

#berntx #crashboomzip #painting #art #abplanalp #austinartists #artforthepeoplegallery #aftpg #Airstream #LastSip #PuppyButts #austintx #Austintexas #atxlife #atxart #atx #austin360 #austinart #atxart #rescuedogs #bernabplanalp

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The Champagne of Food

Popcorn | 8” x 6” | Oil on Canvas Board

First still life of 2022 inspired by the fun of popcorn! It’s basically the champagne of food if you think about it. And my wife absolutely loves popcorn, so I knew this would make her happy. 

I try to do these small still life compositions alla prima, basically in one sitting. I had to do some highlight adjustments the next day after the paint had settled, but that’s pretty typical for me because it seems wet paint is just hard to “read” as final. 

I had a lot of fun with this piece, working from a photo… real popcorn never would have lasted. If you like progression details, I made a time lapse of this piece which you can see on YouTube called “Popcorn Playalong” embedded below.  

#berntx #crashboomzip #painting #art #abplanalp #austinartists #popcorn #impasto #popcornplayalong #champagneoffood

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Porto Venere… Don’t Tell Anyone

Porto Venere, Italy | 20” x 30” | Oil on Canvas

Earlier this year, I did a quick study of this composition and instantly loved the bones of the work. Sometimes you get a sense for a painting right away and you just know it’s going to be fun to paint!


The original study can be found in this previous post, Porto Venere (study), which was much smaller, 9 x 12” on paper. It was clear that the key elements to this piece were lighting and linear perspective.
The values in the photo are crap (midday, washed out), so it required some improvisation and memory recall from the day I was actually in Porto Venere. I wanted to make sure the sense of the very bright sun was captured in the light and shadow contrasts, but still find a way to make the rooftops surrounding the main tower look interesting and not entirely washed out. To help get an idea of what good looks like, I referenced some works by Kanna Aoki (https://www.kannaaoki.com), who has a great talent for capturing the essence of bright sunny days in San Francisco. 


The linear perspective is always a challenge (albeit a fun one) when dealing with cityscapes, but this piece was all about the tower. I took the reference photo from the castle on top of the hill upon which the town is built, so my vantage point was above the tower, but getting the lines right was still very important to convey the size of the building. The trickiest part, however, was the dome. Rather than try and explain the myriad ways it tripped me up, go ahead and try to draw just that part of the building. Too many lines and curves for a mere mortal to tackle. 


There was also a wonderful Bob Ross moment as I experimented with the tower. I was mixing some orange color options on my palette and decided to quickly lay down a little paint on the canvas with a palette knife. The intent was to simply dab a little on the canvas, but my hand slipped and spread a big splotch! That happy accident, turns out, gave the impression of old time stucco, or whatever these old buildings are crafted from, and I loved the texture and realistic result. Nowhere else on the composition did I use a palette knife technique, so it helps add complexity to the piece and focus the viewer to the tower.

 
Last note is the use of reflections of the landscape in the water, which is not in the reference photo. I redid the water numerous times, and each time I used a variation of blue without reflections it dominated the painting and became a distraction. The reflections, I think, give a lot more depth and perspective, which I’m happy with, but one day I’ll have to learn how to do muddled reflections so the water doesn’t look so still. 


If you get a chance to go to this part of Italy, stay in Porto Venere and avoid the crushing crowds of the Cinque Terre. Just don’t tell anyone else – it’s a wonderful place because it’s still a bit of a secret.


Ciao! 


#portovenere #italy #cinqueterre #berntx #crashboomzip #painting #art #artatx #austinartists

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Umbrellas of San Juan, Puerto Rico

20” x 30” | Oil on Canvas Board
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This composition was one of the more complex and difficult pieces I’ve done to date. I’ll admit that after painting close to 100 umbrellas, I seem to have developed a bit of an umbrella-related phobia, which apparently is a thing called “Umbrellaphobia or “Pellebaphobia”. 


This piece was a commission for a good friend from my college days, who was very patient and helpful throughout the process. I couldn’t have taken longer to get this done, but the size was a new challenge for me, and because it was for a friend, I really wanted to get it just right. Initially there was going to be an empty street with beautiful, bright buildings and a canopy of umbrellas. But the end result was less than festive, so we agreed that adding some people would liven things up a bit. 
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The guidance for this piece was to capture the vibe and beauty of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Fortaleza Street was a prime choice, as it’s not only beautiful with the umbrellas, but its a very significant landmark that leads to La Fortaleza​, the residence of the Governor of Puerto Rico. The residence is essentially a fortress that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 


When it comes to painting people, there was a lot of additional practice needed “off canvas”. I’d done street scenes previously, but for this piece there were some new twists to figure out. First, and probably most challenging of all, the scale of people on this street seemed out of whack. The doorways and size of the windows seemed far too large, but when I checked numerous reference photos for Fortaleza Street, I found that the reality was, well, kinda Lilliputian. It’s very hard to paint reality when reality doesn’t align with expectations, like a very old city with strangely gargantuan doorways. Not sure what was going on in San Juan when Fortaleza street was conceived, but it should be investigated… something strange was going on.  The second obstacle was how many people to drop into the scene. In highsight, I think a few more could have been added, but I also like the sense of either early morning or early evening timing with this scene, when fewer people would be wandering around. 


​The focal point of this composition was initially going to be the glowing element of the most crisply painted umbrellas, which I know is something that would piss off all of my past workshop instructors and teachers because it breaks about every rule out there for compositional structure, but it’s what was important to my friend. That said, ​​when I added in the people, I had a lightbulb moment and made a point to really focus on the couple holding hands in the lower right foreground. They are literally walking into the scene, which works really well at also drawing in the viewer to look left for the rest of the street activity (couple sitting at cafe table), and then up to the umbrella canopy, which effectively redirects the view back down to the governor’s residence at the end of the street.

​Lastly, to the umbrellas… lordy lordy, so many umbrellas! The geometry of an umbrella is hard for me, but the added element of linear perspective as they fade back into the horizon line of the composition was a real brain teaser. ​Additionally, the power of value contrasts that ultimately made each individual umbrella get the right shape, namely they looked like blobs of color until I painted the actual metal rods within each umbrella. At that point it started to work better and things moved along quickly.  


If you’re ever in San Juan, go check out Fortaleza Street and let me know if the doorways are really that large!


#oilpainting #fineart #atx #berntx #crashboomzip #oilpainting #austinartists #abplanalp #fortaleza #sanjuan #puertorico #Pellebaphobia

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