October 17th, 2006 by admin
done in a caricature kind of style
Salinas Valley 4 - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 2004
Most of the work I do is of the Salinas Valley - the landscape here is infectious - and I don’t mean e coli - such things, though awful - are played up by the media. According to the Center for Disease Control, there are over 36,000 flu related deaths per year and that was in 2003 - didn’t exactly get the airplay did it?
In any event, this was the last piece I painted using the Salinas Valley name. It was intended to be large and gets significantly better when viewed bigger or of course printed bigger.
It is more of a caricature than most of my current work - but it is strongly within my own type of style. Nevertheless, I think someone familiar with this area would understand - and others might hopefully appreciate the work as its own thing.
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Relevant Tags:Art Prints, caricature style, digital painting, landscape art, prints, Salinas Valley, Salinas Valley art
September 20th, 2006 by admin
digital medium conducive to representing layers of water washed sand
Beach Today - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 2003
I wrote about this piece in July. One of the things I like about the new Blog Guide by Images is that I can keep track. If I do choose to write about the same digital painting again, I can be sure to write from a different angle.
Today I am writing because I was lucky enough to be at the beach yesterday. And today, I clicked on the gallery chance button which landed me in the Landscape Art Galley - clicked on the image roulette button which took me to this painting.
While I was looking at the water and sand yesterday, I was thinking how conducive the digital medium is for portraying the beach and the layers where the water has washed.
I was also thinking that I had not done that many pieces of the beach and well…
I better go more often.
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June 28th, 2006 by admin
size of print can help you to feel the scene
Wave Spray - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 2004
As I look at this piece, I realize I have not been taking advantage of the close proximity to the beach. I know I am not alone in this - but I hate to think of myself as taking things for granted.
The above piece works beautifully large - no really large - where you feel the spray and imagine the smoothness of the sand.
This is both the beauty and the disadvantage of this medium. For some landscape art - large is what makes it work. The above digital painting is an all right enough composition - but it isn’t that exciting - but large and you have the impression you are there.
Well almost, I think I need to make my way to the beach soon - if you don’t live close to one, I am sorry - but more reason for me to not squander it.
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June 13th, 2006 by admin
luminous sky, abstract hills, twilight to grow on
Composite Twilight - digital painting / art prints - 2003
I featured this piece not too long ago as an example of a framed art print. I opted for it today for a different reason.
If I have no particular piece in mind - but still need to write - I can choose randomly. The website has two random buttons - one for choosing gallery and one in 3 of the 5 galleries for choosing a piece.
Composite Twilight came up in the Landscape Art Gallery. But the thing I really like about this piece is how luminous the sky is - there is a vibrancy in the colors above the sky and a glow to the sky itself.
And though the hills are quite abstract - there is this large but believable moon. And truth is - the amount of color in the whole piece is quite accurate to the way it gets here in the twilight - not that accuracy is the ticket.
But this remains a strong digital painting and makes a wonderful framed art print that if you like now, will most certainly continue to grow on you … and that is the best.
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June 8th, 2006 by admin
Creating a landscape of color and harvesting
Pickin’ Start - digital painting - Dan Beck 2006
Painting the fields is comfortable at this point. My approach with this was to just start painting - creating hills, creating waves in the landscape, but not so much caring about conveying a particular place - more of a particular area - the Salinas Valley.
The landscape was fun to create - unfortunately I don’t think the overlap of colors comes through - so I am going to step back and offer up this detail which would otherwise only be seen in an art print.
There is a vastness to this land - and clearly I am trying to show it. There is also something remarkable about the people who work the land and how they appear when one is casually or not so casually looking.
If they appear in a line, it is because they are frequently in a line. If they appear to be acrobats, it is because that is also they way they look. If they appear to be in a swarm, it is also because it looks that way. If they appear to be lost within the landscape of the valley…
I have great respect for the strawberry harvesters that dot the land around me.
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May 18th, 2006 by admin
abstract style digital painting with links to related works
digital painting - 4 the Road Dan Beck - 2003
I keep spinning through my pieces - figuring there is a story to tell about each of them or at the very least a discussion about the medium or the art prints themselves.
When I did this I know I wanted a piece with this title - to come after a piece called 1more in the then other art gallery which has since been disbanded if you will and put into the original art-chives - more than probably anyone needs to know about outhouse studios website history.
The style was pretty abstract - I learned about more subtly adding texture long after this piece. And it looks like at this point, I was only using the stock textures - either not knowing or not having got to customizing my own yet.
There is a pond at the bend in the road - this is not the true landscape - but it is a wonderful microcosm of the rolling fields and the feeling of this land.
Like most of my earlier works it looks very complete printed on 13×19″ Japanese watercolor paper. Its initial pixel dimensions are such that it really looks bold and full. The trade off is that it would not be so exceptional larger than printed and matted for a 22×28″ frame.
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April 19th, 2006 by admin
Energetic portrayal of looming clouds and hill and mountain landscape
Clouds on the Mountain - digital painting - 2003
Its fun to see this piece particularly in relation to the piece below or by clicking. The two aren’t the same scene, but they are practically the same theme.
The above piece was bold and energetic. The focus is on the clouds. I was content at the time with this looser overlapping transparency style of portraying the mountains and hills.
If my recollection is correct, this is one of the first pieces I did when I realized and figured out how to adjust my canvas to be horizontal.
In some programs it would be obvious - but actually nothing is obvious until you know.
The piece was created with less actual pieces and will only enlarge to a 22×28" size. But unlike some of the newer work - it looks complete printed on 13×19" watercolor paper.
My favorite aspects of this piece are how naively flat it all looks while at the same time showing depth; and then of course I love the many toned ever-looming clouds and the checkerboard shadows they cast.
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February 21st, 2006 by admin
Digital Medium, Gradients, Washes, Texture, Material
Afternoon Overlap - Digital Painting - 2005 - Landscape Art Gallery
This particular piece was successful because of the feeling it invokes - well at least in me. The overlapping of color is quite characteristic of the type of thing one can do using the digital medium. Not to say with washes, one can’t do similar things on canvas or directly on paper- but the gradients and transparencies overlap nicely using the computer.
This is actually one of the things I particularly like about using this medium. I have discussed the overlapping gradients at another time in this blog and will undoubtedly continue to do so.
It is one of the backbones of my painting technique and this particular piece shows it off.
The other thing I like in particular about this piece is how warm the texture makes it all feel. It is almost like the hills are made of material. And that is indeed how this particular view of the different colored lettuces growing on the overlapping fields made me feel. The mountains from this particular vantage point were all you could see behind the hills.
Though my approach is once again not all that literal - it does manage to capture what I experienced and create an image which I feel is also pleasing in itself.
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February 4th, 2006 by admin
New Landscape Art in Gallery
Grape Rows & Mountains - Landscape Art Gallery
This piece demonstrates beautifully some of what I particularly like about this medium. The sky demonstrates what is known as a gradient - where you can see the transition from one color to the next most clearly.
The computer makes this gradient color quite accessible, but what it also allows me to do - because I have figured out how - is to paint with such gradients and overlap them so they create new colors and shadings which would be quite difficult, if not impossible with traditional painting methods.
My feeling is that this piece captures a peacefulness and serenity of the foothills of the Santa Lucia mountains. There is no attempt at literalness - but the beauty of the translucent colors and the simplicity of the design captures what is going on.
This is one of the new pieces found in the Landscape Art Gallery at Outhouse Studios. It was created in the Spring of last year and is now making to the site.
There are over 50 new works on the site and a great deal of growth with the medium and fortunately with my own vision as an artist, as well.
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Relevant Tags:Artist Vision, color gradient, digital painting, landscape art, landscape art gallery, Santa Lucia mountains, Vision as an Artist
