Happy New Year!
If you have not received the above art as a personalized calendar card from Benjamin and Cherish and would like one, please make sure you provide us with a mailing address address.
If you have not received the above art as a personalized calendar card from Benjamin and Cherish
and would like one, please make sure you provide us with a mailing address address.
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Categories : Benjamin Hummel, Surprise
As 2011 comes to a close, I had the opportunity to work on an oil portrait for a family whose mother had just passed. As a moving tribute, I was able to combine the father and the mother into a beautiful composition. Since the family did not have any good pictures of them together, I was able to utilize my illustrations skills to combine a bunch of different photos into one final painting.
While portraits are generally thought of as great and unique gifts for weddings, this last example demonstrates that they can be given for just about any occasion. Pricing ranges, depending on medium, size and complexity. Our basic pricing structure can be found here, but feel free to contact us with your proposed budget and we can craft a unique portrait just for you.
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Categories : Benjamin Hummel, Commissions
What makes Painting for Life unique is our ability to work directly with you in creating images that you want for your card, journal, print or any other custom art gift. This year, as many years previous, we were privileged to work with a number of corporations and small businesses in helping them craft very unique and special holiday designs. This year, I want to call out in particular the work we did for Brenda Speer, a trademark and copyrights lawyer, whose works specifically with artists, writers and musicians in helping them protect their works and protect their branding.
The illustrations in this post are the results of the work we did for her in trying to recreate a vintage Christmas. This illustrations were a blast to work on. Thank you, Brenda, for letting us be a part of your holiday celebration.
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“Painting with a Broad Brush,” “Painting Landscapes” and “Anybody Can Cartoon.”
These are the three exciting classes I am privileged to teach starting next January at the Glendale YMCA. You do not have to be a member or a resident to sign up for these classes. These classes are great for home schooled kids, retiring adults and anybody who likes to dabble in art and is interested in taking it to the next level.
The link below will take you to a PDF ad that has more information on these classes.
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This short movie was made using our “Autumn Drive” painting.
Purchase this painting as a beautiful signed and matted artist print! Only $25.
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Categories : Benjamin Hummel
By Painting for Life · Comments (0)
Monday,
November
21st,
2011
The Friday after Thanksgiving is well known as Black Friday, the time for getting a head start on your holiday shopping. But did you know that the following day, Saturday, November 26, has been dedicated to supporting small and local businesses?
We support the movement now known as “Small Business Saturday” as we work to try and grow the local economy. What can be purchased at a local boutique that would normally have been purchased at a box store? Where are the mom and pops that we can support?
Painting for Life has several great gift ideas, from blank journals to ribbons, to fantastic art prints that make great gifts ideas.
This “Small Business Saturday” we will be offering 25% off, all day long, of our entire inventory!
Simply type: small-business-saturday at checkout to participate.
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Have you ever stopped in your tracks and gazed at the beautiful architecture of a nicely crafted building? Have you ever sat and admired a truly gifted fashion designer mix colors and fabrics and patterns together to craft something amazing? If this generally does not describe you, then I can understand why you may not understand the art of Christo. But if this does describe you, as I believe it does for most of this audience, then we have just scored a huge victory for the State of Colorado.
Personally, I have read and seen pictures of many of Christo’s works with great admiration, wishing only that I was older in age to have had the opportunity to witness them in person. This past Tuesday, I’ve finally been given a chance to do so. After many 15 long years of fighting with the State ofColoradoand other jurisdictions, Christo has finally been given the green light to move forward on his “Over the River” project, the draping of semi-sheer fabrics over the Arkansas River, down near Salida, Colorado.
This is a victory for the State of Colorado. Christo has aged significantly since the start of this process and he does not have many years left. His wife and partner Jean Claude has already passed away. This may be his last project, making Colorado the only state in America to have had TWO Christo art projects, the first one being the Rifle Gap project. This will give the state of Colorado a prominent place in art history.
(to read more about my thoughts on this issue, check out the blog post on http://www.politixcartoons.com)
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Categories : Surprise
Tags : current events
Craft Project for the Young and the Young at Heart
Ideal age group: kindergarten – 5th grade
This fun project works well on an individual basis as well as in large groups. Kids really get into their creations and it is very exciting to see what kind of creepy and fun spiders they come up with.
Goals:
Ultimately to have fun. There is also an element of stretching the creative mind through this project.
Materials:
Foam clown noses
Pipe cleaners
Tacky glue
Wiggly eyes
Beads
Glitter
Any other decorative elements
Black elastic string
Step One: Assemble the legs
This is the most difficult step and may require some adult help. It’s important that the slit of the nose ends up being the backside of the spider. I’ve tried it many other ways and this is the way that holds the best. Take your pipe cleaner, center it on the reverse side of the slit, wrap both ends through the slit and back around to the other side.
Once this is complete, repeat for the other three pipe cleaners. When finished, your spider should look like “halloween craft spider step 2.jpg” Four pipe cleaners should yield you eight legs.
Step Two: Accessorize
I started first by adding beads to form the joints for my spider legs. 
This helped the spider hold its form a little better, but I found that kids will decorate the legs in all kinds of different ways and will even use the beads as pasted elements on the spider.
After adding beads, I then pasted eyes onto one side of my spider. Since spiders have eight eyes, I naturally added eight of them. I also used the tacky glue to adhere glitter patterns on my spider.
Step Three: Dry and Hang
After letting the tacky glue dry for about 15-20 minutes, take about a few feet of elastic string and tie off the spider at the end. Now you have a great Halloween spider that bounces from its thread.
This project was conducted for over 200 kids for the Glendale, CO YMCA last year with smashing success. 
It was very exciting to see all of their different creations.
By Painting for Life · Comments (0)
Friday,
September
16th,
2011
Benjamin Hummel spent this past Saturday down at the Arapahoe Community College’s Chalk It Up To Education event, doing his part to help commemorate the sobering anniversary of 9/11. Hummel, artist and founder of Painting for Life, enjoys doing chalk art festivals because the beauty and brevity of the chalk art recreations is for him a metaphor to life. As one who continues to live with chronic illness and pain, culminating in two liver transplants, he understands just how precious and short life really is. The events of 9/11 once again illustrate how we must treasure the moments we share with our loved ones.
Benjamin has been doing chalk art for about 7 years. He has become known as the Rockwell artist, choosing to recreate the famed illustrator’s endearing moments of life for each chalk art piece he renders. This year, he decided to recreate Rockwell’s “Freedom of Speech,” an appropriate tribute to the anniversary of 9/11. “Freedom of Speech” was one of the four freedoms Rockwell illustrated directly from a speech given by FDR during the height of World War II. During their time, as ours, they were filled with uncertainties, yet they continued to focus on their hopes that freedom would endure.
Benjamin took home Best in Show for his work that day.
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Since I will be teaching plein air painting in a few weeks, I realized that I had better get back to the swing of things and start painting on location again. My last paintings have all been studio paintings, where I’ve had the luxury of working from photos, taking my time, and listening to the ball game while I paint.
Painting in the elements is a whole different story. The first hurdle is simply getting there. I packed my French Easel into my backpack, along with some water, Gatorade and powerbars, threw it in the back of my car and headed to Flat Irons Vista, 15 minutes from my house.
The trail is a beautiful one, especially at the beginning. However, I wanted to get some hiking done, so I hiked for about 1.5 miles before I realized that I could no longer see the Flatirons and that the trees were really starting to get thick. I turned around and finally found a location that provided a decent composition.
The second problem is that whatever you forget to bring, once 30 mins in, you will have to do without. I realized that I forgot to grab my camp stool.
The French Easel does not raise up high enough, so I had to find some way to elevate the painting. I found my fattest brush and used it as a shelf. I also brought along a huge tube of burnt umber, which I had thought was white, due to the fact the label had fallen off. Now I had to create this painting with no white! Thankfully, I grabbed ivory at the last minute. This now became my white.
In the elements, bugs fly into the paint, the wind will blow the canvas down into the wet paint, and the heat becomes a factor to contend with. It’s all part of the gig, the fun of the job. After three hours, it started to get real cloudy and look threatening, so I came to a stopping point and packed it up. The result is as you see here, just another day at the office.
This piece will be displayed at our upcoming show on September 10.
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