Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #148. Session EZ IPA by Full Sail Brewing Co.

Let’s take it EZ today with a bottle of Session EZ IPA by Full Sail Brewing Co. in beautiful Hood River, Oregon. I painted the Hood River-White Salmon Bridge, with Mt. Hood in this composition to put a local spin on this painting.  Brewed with Citra, Equinox, and Cascade hops, this unfiltered 4.8% ABV brew is just the ticket to avoid the afternoon brew coma.  A lazy day in the sun sipping IPA all day can lead to an early evening, unless you stick to low ABV sessionable versions of this highly hopped American style of beer.  IPA normally brings the buzz right to your brain, but when it has a lower ABV, it reminds me of a supped up version of light beer.  The taste is right, and the body is there thanks to the unfiltered process, but it just doesn’t goat-kick you to the head.  DIPA and imperial IPA still have their place, but if you want more than one or two, EZ IPA is your go to!  Have the conversation last a bit longer and the afternoon extend ’til twilight with this beverage.  Way to go Full Sail, you did it again!

I won’t be releasing new beer paintings for five weeks, because we’ll be traveling in Russia and Europe, and we’re not bringing oil paint, or a laptop.  But we will be sampling local beers whenever we find notable breweries and pubs, and we’ll post about our adventures on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds.

This original oil painting, and limited-edition prints are available at our Etsy shop RealArtIsBetter.  Domestic shipping is free.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #148. Session EZ IPA by Full Sail Brewing Co. 8″x10″, oil on panel. By Scott Clendaniel.

Our Upcoming Trip to Russia and Germany

~ by Maria Benner

In 7 days, we’ll be boarding a flight on Yakutia Airlines to fly West across the Bering Sea from Anchorage to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia.  The flight is only 4.5 hours, but the time difference is 20 hours.  We’ll spend a couple days there checking out volcanoes and hot springs, and then we’ll fly to Irkutsk, the closest large-ish city to Lake Baikal, the largest fresh water lake in the world.  We’re taking a multi-day tour to explore Lake Baikal, and its surroundings in famous Siberia.  After that we’re flying to Kaliningrad to visit my Aunt, and then traveling to Germany to visit more family.  From Germany we’re flying directly back to Anchorage, so essentially, we will have flown around the world by the end of this trip.  My Mom is the organizer of the whole trip, and we’re grateful that she’s letting Scott and I tag along.

During the trip Scott won’t be doing much painting, because he’s not bringing oil paint, since it takes a long time to dry, so we’re not going to release new beer paintings every Thirsty Thursday until we return.  He is planning on bringing a sketch book, and maybe some water colors.  Stay tuned to our Facebook and Instagram feeds to see pictures that we post along the way on this exciting journey.

And we’ll see what we can find out first hand about the whole Russia hacking America’s election business.

Cheers, or as the Russians say, “Za Zdorovie”!

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #147. The Experiment by Anchorage Brewing Co.

Watch out!  You might start experiencing an encounter of the third kind.  It could be Kang or Kodos attempting to infiltrate Earth with a stick with a nail in it.  Maybe Lrrr is after your human horn, or simply the cork trail will lead you to this open bottle of The Experiment, a sour ale brewed with wild Alaskan blueberries by Anchorage Brewing Company.  This iconic-looking beer has been turning heads around Anchorage, and everyone seems to love the decadent sour ale fermented in oak foudres that is hammered with 5 lbs of fruit per every gallon of this supreme malt beverage.  Almost more of a country wine than an ale, this beautiful brew is really something to “phone home” about, I assure you.  If you haven’t gotten your elongated fingers on a bottle of this, I hope you have something decadent to trade for one, as it will be well worth it!  Cheers to blueberries and beer, a wonderful mixture of flavor and color!

This original oil painting, and limited-edition prints are available at our Etsy shop RealArtIsBetter.

Thirsty Thursday #147. The Experiment by Anchorage Brewing Co. 8″x10″, oil on panel. By Scott Clendaniel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #146. PBR Tall Boy at an Alaska Baseball League Game

Alaska Baseball League games are great in the land of the midnight sun!  We have a wooden bat college league right here of our own.  If you show up to an Anchorage Glacier Pilots home game, you can watch the game from the Pilots’ beer garden, which has its very own bar with an impressive selection of craft beer on draft like Fresh Squeezed IPA by Deschutes Brewing, or Sockeye Red IPA by Midnight Sun Brewing!  The best part is that a pint is only $6!  Where else can you get that kind of price on craft beer at a sporting event?  I chose to paint a tall boy PBR can in this painting, because the draft beer is served in a generic plastic cup, and wouldn’t add much to the composition, but PBR is one of the beers you can get at these games.  The beer garden is so close to first base, you have to really pay attention, or your beer may be knocked over by a foul ball.  So a can is a safer bet.

Alaska baseball has been showcasing some serious talent since 1974.  Famous players like Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Randy Johnson, and a list of many others played here before going pro.  All got their start right here way up North.  If you are on a trip to Alaska, and you have a few extra hours, I recommend stopping by one of the four ballparks.  Every one of them is worth a visit if you are a diehard baseball fan!

Cheers to the truly all American game of baseball!  What could be better than a bag of peanuts, a cold brew, and hours of cheap, clean entertainment?

This original oil painting, and limited-edition prints are available at our Etsy shop RealArtIsBetter.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #146. PBR at Alaska Baseball League game. 8″x10″, oil on panel.

The Difference Between an Original Painting and a Print

~ by Maria Benner

What is the difference between an original oil painting, a limited-edition print, a giclee, or a regular print?  Here’s a simple answer.

Original Painting

The artist actually painted every brush stroke by hand, spending hours, or even days applying paint directly to the painting surface.  There is only one original in the entire world, and even if the artist tried to paint it again, it would be almost impossible to replicated every brush stroke exactly.  So an original painting is one of a kind — no one else in the world has it.  This is why prices of originals are much higher.

Aspen Trees in Fall custom oil painting. 36″x18″, oil on panel.

Limited-Edition Print

A print is a reproduction of an original painting.  It can be printed on canvas, metal, paper, vinyl, etc.  The artist does not even have to make prints, someone else who has legal rights to the image can produce prints using a camera or a scanner, and a printer.  A giclée is a print that is printed with an ink-jet printer.  We use an Epson ink-jet printer to make prints of Scott’s oil paintings, using archival ink.

So what makes a print limited-edition?  When we release a new print, we arbitrarily decide how many copies we will make.  We print on demand, so we don’t have to store thousands of prints.  So let’s say we decide that we’ll make 80 copies of a certain print.  That means that after all 80 are sold, we won’t make any more.  That’s it.  So the smaller the release number, the more valuable the print is, because there are fewer of them.  We number each print at the bottom of the image, so it will say 12/80 for example.  Many people prefer to have the first one, so if you act quickly after we announce a new print release, you can get #1.  Each print is also hand-signed by the artist.

A regular print is not limited-edition and often is not signed.  The artist, or anyone with rights to the image, can make as many copies as they want.  Usually these prints are the cheapest, because there are so many of them, and more can be made at any time.

Limited-edition print, numbered and hand-signed by the artist.

The artist automatically owns the copyrights to his/her painting.  A person can purchase the copyrights from the artist.  The price is set by agreeing on the number of times the painting will be reproduced for profit.  So, if someone wanted to purchase the rights to a Clendaniel original, the price would be the cost of the original oil painting plus the number of prints that will ever be made of that painting x retail value of those prints.

 

Thirsty Throwback Thursday Beer Painting – Pleasure Town IPA by Midnight Sun Brewing Co.

~ by Maria Benner

For the first time I get to write a post for Thirsty Thursday!  This weekend is Scott’s 20th high school reunion, for West High School’s class of 1998!  So, I told him not to worry about painting a new beer painting for this week’s release, but to spend as much time as possible with his friends who came to Anchorage for the reunion festivities.  We all know that our connections with our friends and family are the most important things in life.

So I decided to feature a painting that had not been posted on this blog.  I actually provided the inspiration for this piece.  My friend and I hiked Flattop Mountain one day, and I always bring a beer on all my hikes to drink on the summit.  This time I brought Pleasure Town IPA by Midnight Sun Brewing Co.  As we were sipping the brew and enjoying the view, a paraglider took off right in front of us.  So I parked my beer, and took a photo of him, the view from the mountain, and the beer.  I showed the picture to Scott, and he decided to turn it into a painting.  The name of it is High on Pleasure Town.

I hope you all had a fun and safe 4th of July celebration!  Next week Scott will be back with a brand new Thirsty Thursday beer painting for you.

This original oil painting, and limited edition prints are available at our Etsy shop RealArtIsBetter.  The shipping is free!

Thirsty Throwback Thursday Beer Painting. High on Pleasure Town. 24″ x 12″, oil on panel. By Scott Clendaniel.