What's New

revisiting texture and feeling of abstract rendition of hills

The Hills You Say - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck

I came across this piece today while making it available again for purchase - I suppose a strange benefit of having to redo the entire shopping cart and database of close to a thousand items.

I liked this piece at the time despite not feeling like it was one of my best - but today I am really taken by the color and texture.

I love the bright orange - I love the way the hills feel like they themselves are being blown in the wind. It reminds me of the color and light right before a storm …

something I am seeing today.

See Also

• Scene before a Storm
  Landscape photos - next shot looks like earlier before storm and maybe closer to what I am thinking
• Before the Storm
  A number of nice paintings here - by Maria Bertran - don’t know the artist but like what I saw
• The Hills You Say
  purchasing options for this limited edition print

Adding color and texture - one thing leads to another

Window View - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 2006

In some ways I like the simplicity of yesterday’s start. At the small size like directly above - the even simpler digital painting seems to work better for me. However, when it is printed at 13 x 19″ or larger, it needs the extra detail to look like a finished art print.

Nevertheless, I tried to maintain the simplicity which I liked so much in the first place. I added color to make it more like wading in the fields, rather than wading in the water.

I added texture and additional color to make the fields themselves be of interest. In doing so, everything else - mountains and figures had to have comparable weight - meaning they required additional texture and color for the piece to hold together.

This is why it is so difficult to stop a piece at the right time - one thing leads to another and you have to add this which means adding that - and before you know it, the character of the piece has changed…

but at least you have enjoyed the process.

See Also

• Rainy Halloween Harvest
  First - out the window painting - this one done live in 2003
• Postcards from Thailand -page 1
  Fascinating how similar the rice workers look to strawberry pickers and how wading in the field compares to wading elephants
• Strawberry Fields Forever? - Rethinking Schools - Volume 19 No. 3 - Spring 2005 - Rethinking Schools Online
  The perspective on what it is like to be out there picking - and a good story of giving back

qualities of piece and size of digital painting shape final art prints

Cloud Over Sprinklers - digital painting - 2005 - Dan Beck

I might have featured this piece already. I have it as the first image of my work on the current version of my website.

I don’t know that it is one of my all time best pieces, but I love the color of the sky, the way the clouds hover over the the sun, and the color and texture of the hills. As a digital image it also works quite well at the size shown above.

When I’ve shown a finished print to people, they have all commented on how nice the colors are. It is simple and pleasing - and does capture some of the beauty of the irrigation from a distance.

Another thing I like is that this piece looks so good at the most affordable 13×19" art print size. It will enlarge up to 22×28" well. However, the size of the original digital painting does not make it conducive to being printed super large.

The positive side of this, is that everything is easily visible in the smallest sized print.

See Also

• Clouds Over Sprinklers
  Gallery Page - Enlargement - Art prints and framing options
• Don Villarejo - Consultant :: Photographs by Bill Gilette
  Looking for Irrigation photos, I found this page - very interesting b&w photos of central valley 17 years ago