Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #71, May 5, 2016, Custom Beer Label and Painting Package

Happy Cinco De mayo and Thirsty Thursday!  Today is also Midnight Sun Brewing Company’s 21^st anniversary!  Good work brewers!  Now the brewery is finally old enough to drink legally.  Today’s Thirsty Thursday entry is all about beer labels.  As you may know, I made a label for a Dopplebock brewed at Midnight Sun Brewing a few months ago.  That beer will be released very soon, I have been told.  When I tell people I’m the beer artist, they always ask which beer labels I have designed.  I have to answer that I haven’t done very many yet, and that I am always slacking on time to make good labels for my own home brew.  Well, I took the time to make a special label for my latest batch that I am very proud of.  This libation is called Stubborn Rainbow Perpetually Hopped IPA.  I made this label for dual purposes; I get a label for my beer, which makes the overall product look better, but I also get to showcase my label design abilities.  I worked for three years in a corporate graphic art department in product development, and making these labels reminded me of that time.  

I would love to facilitate any requests for custom beer labels.  You can commission me to create a custom beer label from an original oil painting.  I will work with you to create a custom painting, and will also do the graphics to make a professionally designed label that will make your product stand out on the shelf, or at the home brew sharing party.  You will get both an oil painting to hang in your brewery, and license to print and use the labels as many times as you want!

Stubborn Rainbow occurred to me when I was thinking about true names.  Everybody has one.  A true name is a few words that completely describe someone’s personality, like “Little Big Man”.  While brewing a perpetually-hopped IPA that I was going to call Hop Cycle, I realized Stubborn Rainbow was the perfect name for it instead!  I have been trying to brew a decent IPA for about 10 years now and have always had disappointing results.  Either not enough hops, or oxidation, or something else that prevented me from making the perfect IPA.  Due to stubborn perseverance, I have finally achieved an IPA that has a rainbow of flavor.  Perpetually hopped refers to the hop additions.  When brewing Stubborn Rainbow I boil for 90 minutes while continually adding hops.  It starts out slowly as I don’t want a beer that is too bitter, so I add about one or two pellet hops at a time about every four minutes.  Then, as it gets closer to the end of the boil I switch to flavoring hops and increase the rate of additions until the last minute when I am just about pouring flavoring hops into the boiling wort.  Finally it comes to dry hopping.  This is when I have failed in the past.  I wait until the primary fermentation is completed, about a week at 69 degrees, and increase the last day to 71.  I rack to secondary and add four ounces of hops to the five gallons.  I just drop the loose fresh hops right into the fermenter, and leave them there for another week.  The beer is just about done then.  I rack it into a keg, turn up the pressure and ba da bing, ba da boom I have a fresh hop IPA that is about worth its weight in gold due to the amount of hops it takes!  Tasting the last of the beer in secondary as it is strained through the loose hops at the bottom of the fermenter compares to any of the freshest, hoppiest commercial beers I have ever tasted.  Probably fresher and better!

Dry hopped Stubborn Rainbow IPA. I spilled some hops.

Here is the recipe to brew about 5 gallons of Stubborn Rainbow Perpetually Hopped IPA.

15 lbs organic two row malt (or 7.5 lbs – 8 lbs of Pale Malt extract)

.75 lbs 10L Victory malt

½ tsp brewing salts

½ tsp gypsum

.5 oz Centennial hops (added for the first 45 minutes perpetually)

1.5 oz Centennial hops (added for the  45-75 minutes of the boil)

2 oz Cascade hops (added perpetually for the last 15 minutes increasing towards last minute)

4 oz Simcoe hops for dry hopping.  Add during secondary fermentation.  I have also used Citra hops, which turned out very good.

Depending on your extraction, you should get a 7-9% beer from this recipe.  I nailed my temps on the last batch and it is nearly 9%, so it’s a sipper!

You’ll end up with about 4 gallons in the end due to wort being absorbed in the massive amount of hops.

I’m going to hold onto this painting that I made for my home brew, but I hope you will brew an amazing batch and will want to commission me to create a memorable painting and label for it.  I would love to work with commercial breweries, as well as home-brewers.

You can place the order directly at my Etsy shop RealArtIsBetter.

The custom beer label package includes a framed original oil painting, and a graphic label design.

Stubborn Rainbow beer label design.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #45, November 5, 2015

This week’s painting is inspired by Keith Haring, who passed away in 1990 after living a short 31 years. He died from health complications related to AIDS. His art is youthful, vibrant, socially charged and in my opinion, brilliant. He started out by creating social commentary pieces illicitly on black sheets of paper that covered unused advertisement space in the New York Subway. The resulting backlash not only granted him instant notoriety and fame, but also landed him in a heap of trouble. He was arrested a few times, and was forced to pay many fines. However, all of that paid off, because it resulted in a hugely successful international public arts career. Haring painted one of his most famous murals on the Berlin Wall in 1986.

Although Haring was a staunch advocate for safe sex, he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987. Instead of taking the news badly, he became incredibly prolific, knowing his life would be cut short. Young, but close to death, Haring had a perspective on life that allowed him to produce stunning artworks that encompassed life and death themes that would be impossible under other circumstances.

I feel that Haring would find this version of his painting comical. He had a lust for creativity and art that I believe the craft beer community also embodies. It was not until I utilized his characters that I began to understand his aesthetic and viewpoint on life. The simple outlines are freeing and an amazing form of art that embodies the spirit of the 80s in a way I will never understand, since I was only a decade old when they ended. Cheers to great art! Thanks Keith Haring for living your life to the fullest!

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

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #45 by Scott Clendaniel. November 5, 2015. Beer Parody of Keith Haring’s Art. 11″x14″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #43, October 22, 2015

Whistler’s Mother, or Arrangement in Gray and Black was originally painted by James McNeill Whistler in 1871. The original painting is quite large at 56 x 64 inches. My parody with beer is 11 x 14 inches. The original painting is considered one of the best examples of American Victorian paintings done outside the USA. Whistler’s original painting is displayed and held in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, France where it has lived since its purchase in 1891. This painting has been described as an American icon, as well as a Victorian Mona Lisa.

Whistler describes it as a composition of grays and form. He mentioned, of course, that since it is a painting of his mother, he has different emotions about it considering the content, but due to his formalist outlook on his painting he figured that other people would only be able to view it as a painting of grays and shapes. Ironically this image is looked at as an important icon for the adoration of parents, which is far from what the artist expected. It is such a strong icon that Americans have recreated it hundreds of times. It has been in three Simpsons episodes, as well as made into a postage stamp, and is also a larger than life sculpture at the Mother’s Memorial in Ashland, PA. I hope you find it humorous to see Whistler’s mother enjoying a pint while she rests. Obviously she is a huge fan of beer in my interpretation, as she also is the proud owner of a beer painting hanging on her wall.

Cheers to mothers everywhere! I think she’s drinking a glass of Mother Ale from Denali Brewing, or perhaps Mama’s Little Yella Pils from Oscar Blues. Or you can imagine it to be your mother’s favorite brew.

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

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #43 by Scott Clendaniel. October 22, 2015. Whistler’s Mother with Beer. 11″x14″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #39, September 24, 2015

This week’s Thirsty Thursday beer painting is entitled American Goblet, and is a parody of Grant Wood’s iconic painting American Gothic. Switching the pitchfork for a beer goblet changes everything about this piece. Wood painted this composition to represent American culture. The American Gothic house is a real house in Dibble, Iowa, and the artist painted the couple that he imagined would live in such a house. The pitchfork is a symbol of labor in the field, but the beer glass symbolizes relaxation after a hard day’s work. Now the woman looks irritated at her man, instead of just looking worn out from hard work. I hope this painting makes you laugh, because it’s intended to be a lighthearted look at the way Americans have evolved since the 19^th century. Wood painted this in 1930, three years prior to the end of Prohibition. Maybe that is why the woman (modeled after Wood’s sister), is mad at her husband (modeled after Wood’s dentist), because he is actually breaking the law.

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

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #39 by Scott Clendaniel. September 24, 2015. American Goblet. 11″x14″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #30, July 23, 2015

For this painting I decided to just put the paint down with a palette knife. Sometimes my palate is overwhelmed by thirst and the beer disappears. Did you catch that play on words? I haven’t worked with only a knife for a while now, but it feels good to watch the thick impasto go down. Like being thirsty, palette knife paintings take a lot more paint than traditional brushwork. Since I have upgraded my paint to the highest grade I can find, which seems to be 400% more expensive than the student grade paint, yet only 25% better, I have steered away from such thick work. But I just felt like splurging, and wanted to make this painting. I had fun working with so much medium. Unfortunately, I have been paying for it in more than just more expensive paint. The thicker the paint, the longer it takes to dry. I painted this piece in McCarthy, 310 miles from my studio in Anchorage, and I have been cleaning purple paint off a lot of things as a result. The painting spread some purple paint all over a stainless steel growler, as well as the keg hose. I was glad it didn’t get all over the inside of my truck. It rode home on the dashboard after I realized it was falling over in the back seat, thanks to the McCarthy road being so bumpy! I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I enjoyed making it! Cheers!

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

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #30 by Scott Clendaniel. July 23, 2015. Palette Knife Oil Painting of Beer Pint. 12″x24″, oil on panel.

Close up of paint texture #1

Close up of paint texture #2

Close up of paint texture #3

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #17, April 23, 2015

The Sistine Chapel ceiling mural is a fresco painting that was painted from 1508 until 1512 by Michelangelo.  Frescoes are large paintings utilized as architectural decoration often covering the entire walls.  The paint is laid into the plaster, or wet lime as it dries, which creates a painting that is an integral part of the wall.  The earliest known frescoes are from around 1500 BC, and can be found in the archeological sites on the Island of Crete.  The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was created nearly 3,000 years later.  Michelangelo’s work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is considered to be the pinnacle of Renaissance painting.  I sampled the famous scene where God is creating Adam and inserted beer into God’s hand.  I call this painting God’s Gift.  I have never been to the Sistine Chapel, but intend to get there sometime in my life.  Maria has been, and she was the instigator for this painting.  I found it difficult to emulate the style of Michelangelo, not only because he was a very gifted artist, but also because there is a difference in medium as well, and making my style of oils look like a plaster painting was interesting.  Not to mention, hands are very challenging subject matter… thanks Maria.  I hope you don’t find this painting offensive due to the change in its meaning, however I think our founding fathers would approve.  “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy!”  -Benjamin Franklin

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

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #17 by Scott Clendaniel. April 23, 2015. God’s Gift. 11″x14″, oil on panel.