Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #41, October 8, 2015

This week’s Thirsty Thursday painting is a parody of Gustav Klimt’s world-famous painting The Kiss. I have always been drawn to the work of Klimt, but I had problems emulating it before. He used a large amount of gold paint, which I was forbidden to use in college classrooms until I went to UAA, where it was encouraged. Now I use gold paint in every painting as an under-layer, and you can see it when light hits my paintings at a certain angle.

Klimt painted The Kiss between 1908-1909, during the height of what art history calls his “Golden” period. Austrian, Klimt painted in an Art Nouveau style and was considered a Symbolist. The Kiss is considered his most popular painting, and is now on display in Vienna at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum. It is much larger than my interpretation, which I am dubbing The Sip. Mine is 11 x 14 inches, while the original is 5‘11’’ square. I hope you find this to be humorous and light.

The original oil painting, and limited-edition prints are for sale at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #41 by Scott Clendaniel. October 8, 2015. The Sip. 11″x14″, oil on panel.

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Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #38, September 17, 2015

Short’s Brewing Company’s Huma Lupa Licious India Pale Ale is a noteworthy beer, one you cannot buy outside of Michigan.  Named for the hop plant Humulus Lupulus, this beer is for the hop head.  Fruity and piney, Short’s doesn’t hold back on the hops.  This beer comes in at 7.7% ABV, and 140 IBUs!  Most people would call it a double IPA.  Michigan has some great beer, and this one is a fine find when you are in MI!

Short’s is only 13 years old, starting out in a small vacated hardware store in Bellaire, Michigan. With a seven-barrel brew system, and five fermenters, Joe Short only produced 178 barrels in his first year.  However, this is not the case today.  The upgraded facility in Elk Rapids now produces 800 cases a day of the fine product.  What a great success story!  I hope you get to drink a little of this tasty brew if you get a chance!  As Short says, “Life is Short’s, drink it while you’re here!”

This original oil painting, and limited-edition prints are for sale at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #38 by Scott Clendaniel. September 17, 2015. Huma Lupa Licious by Short’s Brewing. 8″x10″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #24, June 11, 2015

This week’s Thirsty Thursday beer painting is a throwback to the Year of Beer Paintings project, being in the same format and size as those paintings. For those of you who missed it, I painted a new beer painting every day last year, and posted them on this blog. You can see them all in the Year of Beer Paintings section. A couple weeks ago I mentioned that my friend John brought me a delicious homebrew from St. Louis, brewed by Kevin Cummings. Well, I also received a delicious beer called the Schlafly Pale Ale, brewed by the largest independent craft brewery in St. Louis – The Saint Louis Brewery. Schlafly Pale Ale is a delicious example of an English Pale ale brewed in America with American malt, a hop bill of Kent Golding, Pilgrim, Northdown, and London Ale yeast. It is a great beer that won’t leave you wasted. Too many craft breweries have been making beer that is too strong. Well, at 4.4% ABV the flagship beer of the St. Louis Brewery won’t leave you hung over, it will just be a tasty treat. I wish I had more than one. It’s always great to get beer that is not distributed to your home community, and most times all you get is a small taste. This was true as I shared the 12 oz bottle with my wife and Business Manager who agreed this was a worthy beer to paint! The impressive thing is that it survived the drive all the way from St. Louis to McCarthy, Alaska, and still tasted great! This is the first craft beer I’ve ever painted from St. Louis!

Cheers to St. Louis Brewery, the independent brewery with the good stuff. Thanks John rice for driving it thousands of miles all the way to Alaska! Hand delivered to McCarthy, of all places!

The original painting sold, but you can purchase a limited-edition print, or commission a custom painting at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #24 by Scott Clendaniel. June 11, 2015. Schlafly Pale Ale by The Saint Louis Brewery. 8″x10″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #21, May 21, 2015

René Magritte (1898-1967) is a well-known Surrealist painter known for his pieces that made people think. This piece is modeled after a painting entitled, “The Treachery of Images” (1928-29), consisting of a pipe with perfect cursive writing beneath it that says, “Leci n’est pas une pipe,” which in French means, “This is not a pipe”. Magritte is referring to the fact that it is an image of a pipe, not an actual pipe itself. Because he was a very exacting painter, this made sense. I didn’t even attempt to make the painting seem as lifelike as Magritte would have, but I had other motives. I was visiting Brandon Yanoshek, checking the inventory of his late father’s brew equipment, and looking into what was needed to get Brandon up and running. Brandon is an avid pipe smoker and loves to show off his pipe collection. He received a new pipe in the mail that day, a real beauty. Too bad I gave up tobacco a while ago. I still enjoy the smell of pipe tobacco. Later at home I was watching his YouTube video on how to load a pipe and this Magritte painting came to mind.   This painting has another meaning, referring to the fact that most “pint” glasses we use today are actually 13 ounces to the brim, a full 3 ounces short of a full pint, hence “This is not a pint.” If you want to see Brandon’s images of his pipes, follow him on Instagram at @thearcticpipe, and his YouTube channel if you need advice on how to fill your new corncob beauty. Cheers to beer! Check back next week for another Thirsty Thursday beer-themed painting.

The original oil painting sold.  You can purchase limited-edition prints, or order a custom painting at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #21 by Scott Clendaniel. May 21, 2015. Leci n’est pas une Pint. 11″x14″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #19, May 7, 2015

This week’s beer-themed painting is of my homebrewed Saison chillin’ in the snow on top of Flattop Mountain. After a vigorous hike to the summit we drank the beer while enjoying the view and then had a good time sliding down the snow on our way down. I chose to paint homebrew this week because May 7^th is the day that National Homebrew Day was announced before Congress in 1988. Last Saturday the Great Northern Brewers Club put on an event known as Brew-a-thon where home brewers of Anchorage showed up to brew together. It is a national event that kicks off with a nationwide toast at noon CDT, 9AM here in Anchorage! I teamed up with newly retired Rick Levinson to brew a California Common Beer (like Anchor Steam Beer) we are calling the Steamy Retirement. I have been home-brewing for ages and consistently putting out homebrews for ten years now, but I recently upgraded my system from a less than five-gallon setup, to a ten-plus-gallon, all-grain, two-kettle brewery. I enjoy every aspect of the brewing process, except for cleaning fermenters, which is the most boring, although extremely important part of the job. In brewing, cleanliness is next to godliness! I have filled every fermenter I own with beer from the new system. Cheers to Arctic Brewing Supply for having every piece of gear a home-brewer could ever need, and all the ingredients to make world-class beer! I hope your homebrew tastes fresher and more delicious than any commercial beer! If you brew with the GNBC, you are on your way!

The original oil painting sold.  You can purchase limited-edition prints, or order a custom painting at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #19 by Scott Clendaniel. May 7, 2015. Home-brew on Flattop Mountain. 11″x14″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #18, April 30, 2015

This week’s beer-themed painting was inspired by Henri Matisse (1869-1954). He is credited with many famous works and is known for his color and unique fluid draftsmanship. I have always been a fan of his work, mostly because of its rich color. I was lucky enough to see a version of The Dance, the piece that inspired this painting, on display at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. There are two of these in existence, one in Russia and one in NYC at the MoMA. Even though this painting is ridiculously simple, it has a flow and movement that makes is as important to view as any of the extremely detailed classical and Baroque pieces that are prevalent on the lower levels of the Hermitage Museum. This painting was done between 1909-1910, and is probably Matisse’s most famous one, aside from his portrait of his wife, the lady with the green stripe down her nose.

Matisse developed his style over a period of many years. Although he started out studying law, he fell in love with painting in his 20s, much to his father’s, a wealthy grain merchant, disapproval. Matisse is considered a leader of the Fauvist movement, a group of painters working in the 1920s that was dramatically influenced by color and painted in a way considered to be Neo-Impressionism. I have to say that, although the paintings are simple, the striking balance between color and form makes for impressive compositions that evoke thoughts and may require longer contemplation.

I put a pint in the middle of this painting to alter the composition, making the figures appear pixie-sized, or the pint keg-sized (your call), as well as creating a central focal point. Either way I feel it makes for a delightful play on beer and art, evoking a feeling of lightheartedness and celebration. I enjoyed looking at the color combination of this master’s work when I was executing the piece. I hope you enjoy looking at this delightfully simple piece, and that you savor a pint while doing so! I call this piece, The Dance Around a Pint.

You can purchase this painting, or a limited-edition print at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #18 by Scott Clendaniel. April 30, 2015. The Dance Around A Pint. 11″x14″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #13, March 26, 2015

This week’s beer painting for Thirsty Thursday is of Red Chair NWPA by Deschutes Brewing Company in Bend, Oregon. I neglected to include this great beer in last year’s Year of Beer Paintings series, because I painted many other great Deschutes beers, and was looking for more variety of breweries to increase the scope of the project. I chose to paint this beer this week because of the upcoming Merry Marmot Festival taking place this weekend at Arctic Valley – a ski area near Anchorage, Alaska. The festival marks the end of the ski season for this ski area, which is a bummer, because on a normal snow year we’d still have a couple weeks of great skiing left, but the lack of snow this year makes that impossible. Arctic Valley has two red chair lifts, which are Riblet brand, with the tailbone-smashing center pole. Hope your snow pants provide ample padding. Still, it’s the best option for getting to the top, the other one being a Poma t-bar. Although this beer is named for the red chair on Mt. Bachelor, I consider it to be a tribute to all red chairs out there. This North West Pale Ale has a nice hop aroma and flavor. Hardly a pale ale, full of Centennial and Cascade hops coming in with 60 IBUs, this beer is closer to an IPA. Overall, a great beer to enjoy ski après for its refreshing crisp flavor, and stunning complex malt body.

Cheers to downhill skiing, one of my favorite sports, and to Deschutes Brewing, one of my favorite NW breweries!

This painting sold. You can purchase a limited-edition print, or order a custom painting at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #13 by Scott Clendaniel. March 26th, 2015. Red Chair NWPA by Deschutes Brewing Co. 8″x10″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #11, March 10, 2015

This week’s beer-themed painting is of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew Ale by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Delaware!  This unique dark beer brewed with gesho and honey waited for the right moment in my beer cellar for several months.  I was saving it for a quiet evening when I could relax and listen to jazz while sipping on a special brew.  Like the jazz music, this beer was sensual and rhythmic, with just enough funk to make it striking.  I am a fan of what the brew team at Dogfish Head put together, and love the music themed beers.  I listened to this album for the first time 15 years ago while attending music history class at Western Oregon University.  My cool-cat professor was such a huge fan of Miles Davis, he would give away free Kind of Blue albums to people who had never heard the Miles Davis sound.  I drank the beer and painted this piece while listening to the Bitches Brew album.  The background is completely inspired by the Miles Davis sound.

Cheers to the Prince of Darkness, the original Miles Davis and to the brew crew at Dogfish Head, who was genius enough to pair beer with music!

You can purchase this painting, or a limited-edition print at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #11 by Scott Clendaniel. March 10th, 2015. Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew Ale by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. 8″x10″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #10, March 5, 2015

This week I decided to make an abstract painting of a pint using the stylistic lines and forms that would be common in a Kandinsky painting. Wassily Kandinsky was born in Russia in 1866 and died in France at the ripe old age of 78. He studied law and economics at the University of Moscow, but is ultimately credited with the first completely non-objective, abstract modern art. Ironically, this beer painting is objective. Kandinsky started painting when he was 30, and studied art in Germany. He returned to Russia in 1914, when World War I broke out, but didn’t jive with Communist Moscow’s approach to art, and moved back to Germany in 1921. He taught at the Bauhaus, an avant-garde school of art and design, until the Nazis shut it down. So he moved to France in 1933 where he lived for the rest of his life, and produced his best paintings. This beer painting was inspired by composition VIII, painted in 1923 when Kandinsky was a professor at the Bauhaus. I call this painting Pint Composition. I find the paintings by Kandinsky to be both inspirational and beautiful, and I hope you enjoy my beer-themed version. I wonder if Kandinsky drank beer at the Hofbräuhaus when he lived in Munich.

The original oil painting sold.  You can purchase a limited-edition print, or commission a custom beer painting at my Etsy shop RealArtIsBetter.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #10 by Scott Clendaniel. March 5th, 2015. Pint Composition. 6″x12″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #9, February 26, 2015

When you have a fresh new pint of beer in front of you, and you look down at the foam, have you ever seen shapes resembling something?  Maybe if you were feeling extra artistic and had a moment that can only be described as the “aesthetic experience”.  I always get that feeling when I stare into a pint.  Like in a magic crystal ball, I see visions of the possible future, memories of past events, and sometimes inspiration strikes.  So, for this week’s Thirsty Thursday painting I painted a version of Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night as if I walked up to a pint and saw this sublime work of art in the foam.  The painting is composed as if the viewer is looking directly down into the pint.  Of course I have never hallucinated the Starry Night in a pint glass.  Instead, it is a metaphor for my muse.  I think this hyperbole appropriately states how important beer has been to me as an artist.  Everybody knows enough about Van Gogh, so I spare you the history lecture.  I recommend watching the Kirk Douglas movie Lust for Life, if you want to learn more about the famous artist.

Cheers to living life to its fullest!

The original painting sold. You can purchase limited-edition prints, or order a custom beer painting at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #9 by Scott Clendaniel. February 26th, 2015. Starry Pint. 11″x14″, oil on panel.