Brewery | Real Art Is Better!

It’s time for the Great Alaska Craft Brew and Barleywine festival here in Anchorage, Alaska! This annual event happens in the dead of winter every year. Well…every year, unless we happen to be having a pandemic. In our defense, even the Germans cancelled Oktoberfest that year. Fortunately, now that the ‘Ronassance is over we are back on track to have the barleywine-guzzling, beer-swigging, bagpipe-marching, hootenanny drunkfest that is the GABBF.

I want to talk about what is appropriate to wear to the this shindig. First off, dress warm! Today we woke up to -19F degrees outside, here in Anchorage, and that is not a pleasant temperature to be wearing skimpy dresses and no coats. Downright dangerous when waiting curbside for a ride home! Fortunately, there is a coat check at the event, so you can stash your outerwear and emerge from your parka to show off the good looking attire underneath. Men and women probably want to wear different things, although I am sure Johnathan Van Ness would totally rock a gorgeous beer themed dress to the fest. Beer leggings are probably more for gals than for guys. Lederhosen are traditionally dude wear, and if you have a pair, now is a good time to show off your German heritage. Of course brewery gear is a great idea. T-shirts, sweatshirts, ball caps, beanies, brewer button down shirts, and, although most people won’t see it unless you get really really drunk, brewery brand underwear. Yes, Ted at Turnagain Brewing, you should wear your special Turnagain Brewing boxer shorts. Clark Pelz from Cynosure Brewing wears an elaborate western button up shirt with a hop pattern embroidered on it, he looks very stylish in it.

If you wonder why the rubber chicken is a GABBF staple, then you can read about it here in my previous blogpost. The rubber chicken necklaces are a gift from Phil Farrell, a long time attendant, and BJCP beer judge at the fest. Pretzel necklaces serve two functions: they look cool and keep with the German vibe, but also feed the hungry beer drinker. It is important to eat a lot of food when imbibing in as much beer as you probably will drink at this event. I suggest preloading with greasy, heavy foods that coat your stomach, so you won’t get the spins before the session is over.

We offer a lot of my artwork on beer themed clothing at our RedBubble site. We also have two kinds of beer-themed socks available at our booth. Did I mention I will be there selling my art? Have a drink, or three then stop by and visit me! I want to see your cool beer apparel. There just ain’t nothing quite as cool as seeing someone slurping the suds while wearing cool beer duds. So grab your pretzel necklace, eat some fries, get on down at Dena’ina Center for the big beer and barleywine festival!!!

First small painting mural study

The owner of Snow Goose Restaurant and Sleeping Lady Brewing Company decided to have a mural on the North wall of the building on 3rd Avenue, and the manager contacted me because in the brewing community in Anchorage I’m known as the “beer artist”, so naturally he thought I was the obvious choice. I am really excited about an opportunity to paint on such a large scale. This will be the largest painting I’ve ever made by far!

The first thing I did was research how one goes about making and selling someone on a mural concept. I learned that a detailed proposal is not included in the original bid, because a proposal takes so much time and energy to complete. Once the bid is approved, the proposal is a paid part of the process of creating the mural. I prepared a bid packet with three preliminary image concepts along with a budget and met with the owner to make the hard sell. To my delight, he chose the design that I preferred and gave me the go-ahead to create the mural proposal. The concept is a depiction of the inside of the brewery, which has gorgeous copper kettles. I want to show all aspects of the brewing process, which is difficult because all the steps don’t happen in one place in the brewery. The ability to show more than one can photograph is one of the interesting aspects of painting. So I am working from many photos I took early one morning at 6:30 AM while the brewers were brewing a batch of Fish On! IPA -one of my favorite brews. I printed the best photos and laid them out all over my studio and made a compositional sketch. I then made a small oil painting study of the brewery. Now I am making a larger study, and when it’s finished I will make a mock-up image in Photoshop to show what it will look like on the wall. Stay tuned to see the photos of that mock up.