Robie Benve Art

"Hopes and Smiles" 12'x12" Oil on  linen panel in floater frame Sold Another en plein air landscape painting of the Park of Roses, in Clintonville, OH. I did this one day after the previous post. I really loved that tall tree with cool colors, and I enjoyed the challenge of painting it, as well as the sprinkles of the fountain.

I'm thrilled to announce that two of my paintings have been accepted into the Farms en Plein Air , the 2018 Ohio Plein Air Society Member Show at Springfield Museum of Art. It's such an honor to be included in that amazing group of talented artists! I'm looking forward to seeing the show and attending the reception on Dec 8th. Show Dates:  Dec. 8, 2018  – March 9, 2019 Springfield Museum of Art 107 Cliff Park Rd, Springfield, OH 45504 "Everal Barn" Oil on board 11"x14" I completed Everal Barn last spring in Westerville, OH. "I'll Be Bright with You" Oil on linen panel 9"x12" I did "I'll Be Bright With You" in September. I was lucky to be there on the last day the sunflowers were still in full beauty. I went back a second day to finish the painting and they were all drooping down and sad looking. Good thing I had them all blocked-in on the panel and I could keep going with the painting wi...

This is a better photo of my latest plein air painting, done at a local farm. The last post did not have the final painting, only work in progress shots. "I'll Be Bright With You" 9"x12" Oil on linen panel $250 I found this lovely view at the OSU farm, it’s very close to my house, yet I had never thought to paint there before, I wasn’t sure it was allowed, but they were super friendly and excited about the idea of an artist painting the farm.  I ended up going back a couple of times to finish the painting. The second day the sunflower heads were already drooping down, but I have the shapes already in place, so it was easy to keep going.

"See You Later" 24"x24" Oil on Canvas $650 Inniswood Gardens is a wonderful Park in Westerville, Ohio. I love to go there and walk around, on my own, with friends, and also with my kids. The park has several different areas, with specific habitats, and environments, and nice areas for kids to play, including a great tree house. Anyway, this painting features the boardwalk in the wooded area, and a barred owl, a bird that can actually be seen in the park. On a personal level, I am very attached to the park because they gave me the opportunity to have my solo show in the Innis house last fall. I had several of my landscapes in the show, and the reception was well attended, thanks to the terrific support from the staff and the patrons. Can't wait for the fall colors to be back, that's my favorite season in any park! "See You Soon" will be in the show "Reflexion from the WAAL", the fall show for Worthington Area Art League Me...

"Red Berries" 5"x7" Oil on Gessoboard Small oil painting of red berries. I painted it from life at one of the Metro Parks here in town. Fun! :) R

I have quite a bit of  landscape paintings by now, and I am very excited that I got accepted to exhibit several of them at the Inniswood Botanical Gardens, in Westerville, Ohio. The show is in the Innis House, a nice space, open to the public and used to host various events. Innis House Hours: Tuesday through Friday 8am-4:30pm, Saturday and Sunday 11am - 4pm and is closed Monday and holidays. There will be a "Meet the artist" reception in the afternoon of Sunday 11 September, from 2-4 pm. I'll be there with cookies to meet with both friends and park visitors, coffee, tea, and soft drinks will be served alongside cookies and other sweets. I hung the show today, and I think it looks pretty good. : ) I have 20 paintings up, all landscapes. Here are a couple of pics showing some of them.

"Path to Health" 6"6" Oil on board SOLD Last year I went to a local park and painted a path in the meadow full of golden rods. Based on that image, I painted this path, but surrounded it with red flowers instead. (Are they poppies? I think they are, but you can decide. :) Paths are very symbolic, and this one in particular made me think of all the sad news I got recently about dear friends and wonderful people fighting with disease, especially cancer. I dedicated this small painting to their recovery. May there be health, strength, and happiness after the curve. To all that are fighting to gain health again: keep strong, keep the fight up. The final result is worth all the sacrifice. Love, R

"Colorful Walk" Oil on masonite panel Ready to pop into a 5"x7" frame SOLD A small colorful landscape painting that I did last fall at a local park. I love to paint small when I paint on location, it gives me the chance to finish in a short time. The colors where so nice and warm, it was a pleasure to paint outdoors surrounded by people walking on the beautiful paths.

"Scioto River" 12"x12" Oil on Board SOLD This is one of my daily paintings for the month of September. 30 days of painting, even though I will not end up with 30 artworks, because some days I am working on bigger pieces - I don't actually get to finish one a day. I really enjoyed painting this landscape, for many reasons. Here are a few: I love this location for plein air, it's at Scioto Park in Dublin, OH. I was able to cover a 12"x12" completely with paint in a relatively short amount of time, which means I am becoming more confident (thus fast) in my painting decisions. The day was just gorgeous: sun shining, light breeze, birds everywhere, including a blue heron and a bald eagle (for real!). The magic of painting outdoors: you get to experience and appreciate the surrounding nature. I had fun rendering the rocks and the water with paint. Both are always a challenge, but I embraced it with positive attitude and I liked the results. ...

"Summer Blooms" 12"x12" Mixed media (oil and acrylic) on board, unframed Available This painting has been an experiment, with the purpose of troubleshooting a problem. First I painted it with acrylic paint on a very smooth gesso board. The smoothness made the paint slide everywhere, showing too many transparencies. Even with several layers of paint, it still looked like there was not enough and the painting was not finished. So I thought I could try painting over it with oils. In fact you can paint over acrylics with oils, though you can not paint with acrylics, which are water-based, over oils. Oils are thicker and more buttery, and they solved the problem of the thin look. I am happy with my solution. :) I may do more with this mixed media technique! In fact I have another painting similar to this one (same composition but flipped horizontally) that I did with acrylics, and somehow it looked more finished. I may go over with oils on that one too, ...

"Just Mowed" 6"x6" Oil on board Available Sometimes, when I go out and paint on location with a group, other painters are surprised at the small size of my board. A 6"x6" looks quite small on an easel (and even off the easel, lol) But painting small is a wonderful way to give myself the opportunity to finish the painting in one sitting, on location, taking fully advantage of the limited time available. I usually am productive for a couple of hours tops, then I need to take a break. If I'm with a group I love to walk around to see what everyone else is painting. That gives me an extra boost, because I have some excellent painting companions, and their work can be very inspirational. After two hours a 6"x6" is very close to completion. So the break provides a "fresh view"upon my return, and I am able to better see what's needed as far as finishing touches. If I paint a bigger size board I often end up going home wit...

"Rolling Fields at Walnut Woods" 8"x10" SOLD In Ohio it's pretty rare to find hills or mountains. So when I see places with clear terrain lines or a hint of hills, I get very excited about painting them. Walnut Woods Metro Park is one of the few parks around Columbus that offers some nice terrain lines, and I painted this piece on location, a day in early spring, with a few strokes added later in the studio. I realized that that happens a lot to me: finishing a plein air painting in the studio. Truth is, it's hard for me to completely finish a painting on location. Part of it is due to the fact that most days I run out of time and I have to run home to get the kids from school. But to be completely honest with myself, I have to admit that my brain needs a little detachment from the image, I need to see it after a break of time, with fresh eyes, and then I can really see what needs to be done next. Sometimes when I see it again after a break I can...

"Field of Poppies" 6"x6" Oil on Gessoboard SOLD Red, a powerful color. It can really set the mood, and it's a good, vibrant, joyful mood. : )

"Changing Season" 9"x12" Oil on gesso board Last fall I spent a nice Saturday morning at Highbanks park, painting with a group called COPA (Central Ohio Plein Air). The group is open and friendly, and every Saturday they go to a different outdoors location, paint until about 11:30, then have a critique. I don't make it very often, but when I do I really enjoy it. As I was saying this painting is from last fall, but it was not quite finished that day, I still had a few areas of paint to fill when it was critique time. I took it home and did not work on it for a while. Part of the reason is that I had a reference photo, but it's not the same.When you see the landscape in person it's so much better! And going back was not appealing because it got REALLY cold and all the leaves had fallen. So I had no choice but work from the reference photo and finish it up. The pavilion roof gave me some trouble, the color it was did not fit in well with the pai...

"Rocking the Shore" 8"x10" Oil on canvas board SOLD For Prints of this Painting Click Here Not far from my house runs the Scioto river. Even thought it's right in the middle of the state capital, it offers beautiful natural scenes that really inspire me to paint. This one is one of my favorite spots at Scioto park, on the northwest side of town. There was a fisherman behind me while I was painting. I was almost tempted to include him in the scene too, but I had already started the landscape facing the other way. Maybe next time. I painted it on a canvas panel, not on my usual gesso boards, that are so smooth. On the gesso board the brush slides quickly, which makes painting a little faster, but also, somehow, you don't need a huge amount of paint to make it look thick. The texture of the canvas on this panel made the same amount of paint look much thinner, and I had to force myself to load my brushes more to give a thicker look. Still it do...

"Rock in the Stream" 6"x6" Oil on gessobord Available It was a very cold day at the park. Cold, cloudy, with on-and-off rain, and I did not feel like painting the landscape because in cloudy days colors and value contrast are not there, and paintings come out a sort of bleah (at least my paintings, lol). So, since I was already at the park and I had made the effort to bring all my painting gears with me, I looked around for something interesting, and found a stream. Promising. In the stream I saw this rock, and I decided to give it a try. Now you should know that I try to avoid painting two kind of things: things I don't like and things that I deem too difficult.  Moving water is one of the latter, very challenging to paint. I rarely saw painting of moving water (by anybody ) that I liked. The fact that I had a small 6"x6" with me (not over-committing) helped me pick a challenging subject. I tried it out. And you know what? I think that ...

"Line dancing on the Scioto" 18"x24" Oil on Canvas Available I really like this painting. Unbelievably, even though it looks from a country-side, it's a scene from the Scioto river banks downtown Columbus, under the bicentennial bridge. This is the way it looked a few months ago, when I painted it, now they are excavating and it's full of orange tape, machinery, and mud. I hope it'll go back to be a pretty view soon. It makes me feel calm when I look at it.  : )

"Leaning Towards Winter" 8"x10" Available Fall colors are here, what a marvel for the eyes! I went paintung at Pickerington Ponds Park, in Canal Winchester, OH. This small tree on the banks of a pond had started  getting golden and copper colors, and it was beautifully contrasting with the water and the darker trees in the distance. I had fun painting this, and after a period of very small plein air paintings (6"x6") this is an 8"x10", and I was able to complete it in a couple of hours.  I'm pretty happy about it. :)

"Path in the Prairie" 8"x10" Oil on Gessoboard NFS Today I was finally able to join the COPA (Central Ohio Plein Air) group in one of their Saturday outings to paint on locations around Columbus, OH. Many Saturdays I tried to paint with them, but life has been taking me other places. My view when I was painting "Path in the Prairie" The prairie at Brandon Woods Park were gorgeous with yellow goldenrod, and the sun made them truly glow. :) A few of us decided to paint the same path :)

"Fairies' Shelter" 6"x6" Oil on Gessobord SOLD In my pursuit of the thirty paintings in 30 days challenge, I have skipped a few days... so technically this is my fifth painting even if today is the 8th of the month. And yes, I am planning on catching up - who said the 30 paintings must be one-a-day?  Maybe I can be brave and strong and produce more than one painting a day... think positive Robie, you can do anything you put your mind to!  :) I painted "Fairies' Shelter" en plein air , and the sun played tricks on me because it disappeared 5 minutes after I started painting, and came out again when I was on my way home. Do you realize how frustrating it is to have seen the warm colors kissed by the sun, in patches through the leaves above, and then everything gets dull and low contrast, and you try to render the feeling of what you saw first, without actually seeing it? Well, for a moment I thought of going back to the studio and leave ...