Robie Benve Art

"Scioto banks" 8"x10" Oil on Gesso Board Available Second day of the year, another painting done. This is one of my favorite locations along the Scioto river. I took the photo in the fall, when I went there to paint en plein air. Today I have done this painting in a quick study style, wet on wet, like I would have done if I was on location, where you have to paint in one go to finish before the light changes dramatically, or before it's time to pick up the kids from school, at each his/her priorities. :) I think I succeeded rendering the impression of the view, and that was the goal, so I consider it a success. Thanks very much for stopping by.

"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. ...

"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 ...

"View of Tulum" 18" x 24" (45.7 cm x 61 cm) Acrylic on Stretched Canvas, Framed $530 Last year we went to the Riviera Maya, and it was the first family vacation for the four of us ever, unless you count when we go to Italy to see our folks, but that's home, different from a full blown vacation. We had a wonderful time, and I took several photos. This is one of my favorites and I have wanted to paint it ever since. Finally I completed the painting. It took me a while, I got frustrated and I set the painting aside for several weeks, and then brought it out again to continue painting with fresh eyes. Seeing it next to the photo, it looks quite different, starting from the sand that is not as white, but when I tried to paint it clear, the big light area was getting too much attention, distracting from the rocks and the ancient building, which I wanted to be the center of interest. So I darkened the sand and changed few things accordingly. Looking ba...