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Momentarily Captured

Sunset Over Artichokes - digital painting - Dan Beck 2007

Above is my most recent digital painting - on my way home that evening I happened to take the route through the artichoke fields and glimpsed this sight.

It was fleeting - the color, the depth, the folding hills - some from reality, some from memory - but the portrayal worked.

I have shied away from doing artichokes - more jagged and painstaking a subject than I really want to get into - I generally find them other worldly. But in the light of the sunset - they were warm rows - less defined and calling my name.

And I knew I must paint what I had seen -

After one sitting I stopped here - because I really liked it - I worked on it more the next day as you will see later - but I think I captured more of what I wanted in that first sitting alone.

See Also

• Fennel Field & Sky - first day’s stopping point - captures spirit better than successive versions - this is purchasing info for art prints of a different but stylistically similar work.

• Artichokes | Green Globe Artichokes | Pezzini Farms in Castroville - local grower - very close by - not the same fields - but artichoke info and good photos capturing the other worldliness of the fields
• Photography Workshops Photo Gallery by Zane Paxton at pbase.com - I really like this photo - not the same color glow as I saw - but something remarkably similar - click on photo to see index of other work

digital painting technique used today - theme yesterday

Field of Hoes - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 2005

Theoretically, I found this piece by chance today - clicking on gallery chance - which randomly found the Figures Art Gallery - then hitting image roulette landed me at this piece.

My last digital painting was titled “Hoes in the Mist” - its origins similar in that the name was a part of the inspiration - plus similar theme.

The way I portrayed the distance was new at the time - doing a little copying, manipulating and pasting to establish perspective.

I don’t do that all that often - but today I did - and though it is easy to find meaning and connection - this doesn’t seem accidental to be featuring this piece today.

See Also

• Field of Hoes
  availability of art prints for digital painting Field of Hoes
• Cool Optical Illusions - Wow Perspective Distance Fun
  optical illusions are fun - and much of art is a bit of that anyway
• What is Perspective?
  Perhaps more than one wants to know

conveying scene, witness, labor, humanity and meaning

Strawberry Fields -digital painting / art prints -Dan Beck 2005

I started working on a new art piece - not above - but related. Witnessing the daily harvest of strawberries is actually fairly new to me.

Many of the fields around me were converted last season. The above digital painting is from the previous year but is about trying to convey this incredible scene.

The field workers are always in what look like uncomfortable positions - kneeling, curved backs, stretched out - but I am generally not as close as the portrayal above.

As a witness, it is my goal to both share the awkwardness, the humanity, the dignity and perhaps the dismay - at those people who think that migrant labor is a job that people born in America would actually be willing to do.

I just came back from a trip to New York, and the truth is - it is almost impossible to get summer help from American youth any more.

This is not a political blog, but imagine a world without strawberries.

See Also

• Strawberry Fields
  Options and availability of art prints
• Watsonville Berry Co-op: California Strawberries
  Photos of strawberry harvest - a number thoughout site
• UC Vegetable Research & Information Center
  Images of agriculture from San Joaquin Valley - an education