A Few Christmas Commissions

The Trailblazers of Craft Beer

This is a series of paintings we had the privilege of doing for our friends at The Brew Shop, to be displayed on the walls of their veritable beer cathedral. All ink and paint on 23x15in canvases, these paintings pay tribute to the many of the great individuals behind the craft beer movement. From top to bottom: Fred Eckhardt, Jack McAuliffe, Charlie Papazian, Fritz Maytag, Don Younger, and, of course, the great Michael Jackson.

Russian River & Hops

An oil painting of Russian River crowns with fresh hops

Oil on Panel
16x24in
$225
Sold

Orval crowns on panel

Oil on Panel
16x24in
$225
Buy on Etsy

This is the second beer painting we've done on panel, the first being the Westvleteren crowns. We're able to price these works a wee bit lower than their canvas counterparts, as the preparations required for painting on a panel are far less time consuming than that of building and stretching a canvas. Quite like their canvas counterparts, these paintings on panel have cleanly painted sides, a varnished surface, and come with a hanging wire on the back. 

Rochefort 10 in Spray Paint

The third in a limited series of five.

16x30in

Spray Paint on Canvas

$175

Buy on Etsy

This is the third "print" in a limited series of five, from original, handmade Rochefort stencils. This piece of beer art is solely a tribute to the great Rochefort 10, with the Rochefort 10 crown emerging from the dark. While this painting may look relatively straight-forward, in actuality, each successive crown in the sequence has more dimensional rendering than the last. This rendering, peaking at the rightmost crown, is achieved by delicate application of a range of spray-paints.

Westvleteren Blonde and 12

Oil on Panel

16x24in

$225

Sold

It seems to be an ongoing tradition for us to paint Westvleteren caps every few months. It is the first thing beer-related we decided to paint and we still love the way the caps look. This is also the first large-scale cap painting we've done with the Blonde, which, in our opinion, is a phenomenal example of the style.

The Making of the 2011 Jubelale Artwork

The 7 Trappist Breweries

20x35.5in

Oil on Canvas

Commission

A commissioned oil painting of the seven Trappist breweries - the six in Belgium - Achel, Orval, Westvleteren, Rochefort, Westmalle, and Chimay - and the one in the Netherlands - La Trappe. This may be the ultimate beer painting, at least that we'll ever produce.

Supplication, Darkness, and Matt

A commissioned painting of Russian River Supplication, Surly Darkness, and Hair of the Dog Matt - - all phenomenal beers, in our opinion.

Deschutes Jubelale Party at the Bend Pub

This upcoming Tuesday (the 20th) at 6pm, Deschutes Brewery is tapping the 2011 Jubelale and revealing the artwork we did for the label at the Deschutes Public House in downtown Bend, Oregon. We will present at the event, signing poster prints of the art. We've already consumed several bottles of this years Jubelale and it is drinking wonderfully... perhaps the tastiest vintage so far.

Trappist Rochefort crowns 2 of 5

16x30in
Artist Grade Spray Paint on Canvas
Limited Series of Five
$175
SOLD

The second in a limited series of five.

Shades of green - An oil painting of hops

16x14in
Oil Paint on Canvas

SOLD

When our friends at Lone Pine Coffee Roasters invited us to their house recently, they showed us a beautiful sight - a giant mass of hops growing in their backyard. As you can see, we couldn't resist painting them.

Great Breweries of Belgium

Impressionistic Oil on Canvas
16x30in

$360
SOLD

     This is an original oil painting of some (maybe most, but not all) of Belgium's great breweries. This painting includes crowns (and cork and cage tops) from Rochefort, Rodenbach, d'Achouffe, Saison Dupont, Westvleteren, Gulden Draak, St. Bernardus, Westmalle, Chimay, Orval, Duvel, and De Struise. Okay, we'll admit - De Struise has blank crowns and we had to make a fake one, but we feel they are too goddamn good to not include. "But why did you not include Fantome, then?" We don't know, we're sorry. In any case, we're very happy with how this painting came out. Much like the painting of California caps that we did, this one is more painterly than our regular work.

A Work In Progress...

Framboise with Raspberries

Impressionistic Oil Paint on Canvas
14x16in
$170
SOLD

Paintings for The Hopry

We frequent a lot of beer sites and beer blogs, but one of our favorite sites for beer reviews has to be The Hopry. Mark Starr and his small crew manage to make the video beer review format highly watchable, with good production values and very engaging beer talk. We recently did a few small paintings for The Hopry and Mark was cool enough to make a video of him seeing the paintings for the first time. It is a neat thing for us to see our paintings outside the context of our little paint-splattered work den and it may be worth a view for anyone interested in our work. Check it out here! And if you aren't already a fan, be sure to hit TheHopry.com!

Christmas Commissions

It may be a little strange to post about Christmas this early, but last year we received several commission requests in a fairly narrow window of time before Christmas. We did get them all done and shipped out in time, but it required a ridiculously frantic pace and we had to ignore nearly everything else in our life. This year, we would love to do many custom pieces for people to give as presents, but we would also love to have the time to do the paintings and do them right. Because of the nature of using oil paintings, it is ideal for us to have at least a month to complete a piece.

Long story short: Christmas is still far off, but if you're interested in commissioning a painting for a friend or loved one, now would be a good time to get in contact with us!

Cheers!
Cara & Louie

Lagunitas and Hops

14x16in
Impressionistic Oil Paint on Canvas
SOLD

A Room Full of Beer Art

2000 - 2011

We lost our dog Timber yesterday. Actually, we didn't lose her - she died. She wasn't the biggest fan of beer, but she was a great dog. This evening, we are going to be drinking out of our dog-branded Lagunitas jar. More new work coming soon (although, our studio is getting a bit full)...

Beer & Cigars

Impressionistic Oil Paint on Canvas

16x20in

$240
SOLD

This is an original oil painting of an Imperial Stout poured in a snifter, along with two La Gloria Cubana Serie R cigars. Much like the painting of the California crowns we recently did, this painting is a bit more impressionistic.

Deschutes Jubelale 2011

Every year, Deschutes Brewery chooses a local artist to do the artwork for their great winter warmer, Jubelale. Earlier today, Deschutes Brewery posted a preview of this years Jubelale art, which happens to have been painted by us!

Needless to say, it was a huge honor for us to get the chance to do the art for a beer that we have a lot of love for. The funny thing is that despite the fact we make a lot of original beer art, we were actually chosen because of our regular artwork, which is becoming somewhat well-known here in Central Oregon.

The 2011 Jubeale will be hitting stores this fall - so keep your eyes peeled.

Edit (8/12): They posted a photo of the bottles coming off the line - very cool!

The Great Breweries of California

Like much of our other work, this painting is oil on canvas. It differs in that it is far more painterly and loosely impressionistic in construction. This painting contains crowns from what we consider the great breweries of California - North Coast, Lagunitas, Firestone Walker, The Bruery, Stone, Bear Republic, Pizza Port, Anchor, Russian River, Moylan's, and Sierra Nevada.

Oil on Canvas

16x30in
$360

SOLD

Special Request

If you bought a painting in the past, we would love to hear from you! Please comment on this post (or drop us an email) and let us know how you feel about the work you own. Thanks in advance!

New work coming soon - some a bit different from what we've done so far.

Regarding our work

Cara and I have been doing these paintings for about a year now. We've sold a lot of work and we've had the pleasure of doing a lot of commissions for people. We have been working as full-time artists for a few years now and the works on this site have been a great side-project for us.

The reality of this work is that it is not sustainable. That is to say, for the amount of time that goes into each piece, we are making a bit below minimum wage. Another reality of this work is that it is very likely that in the near future, we will no longer be producing paintings of this sort. (That said, we do plan to keep making new works at least through the end of this year.)

Despite those factors, we love doing these works as we really, truly love craft beer. We very much appreciate all of the people who have spent hard-earned money on these pieces, as they have enabled us to continue scraping by as artists for another year. While this may go without saying, this has never been a cynical attempt at making money for us. There are some fundamental contradictions in creating fine art of this sort, as we are pricing the works as low as possible, but to the average person - that "low price" is still a significant amount of money.

All of that said, it has recently come to our attention that someone is attempting to imitate our work in bulk, by farming the painting out to artists in the Philippines and offering to pay the artists what would amount to something like 50 cents an hour to create "40 to 50" paintings (see Craigslist ad here - imgur link if ad is gone). It would appear that this person saw what we are doing and saw that there was money in it, without thinking about how much work and passion was involved. We don't mind a bit of competition and if someone could do what we are doing better and cheaper, so be it. But this clearly is not that. I attempted to contact the person who posted the ad to see if I was mistaken, but received no response. It is our opinion that if these farmed-out works are produced, they would be a cynical exploitation of second-world artists and would very likely be a bad, insincere facsimile of the works we produce.

Thanks again to everyone that has supported and promoted our work, especially those that have bought and commissioned paintings to put in their home, brewery, or pub.

Cheers!
Cara & Louie

Trappist Orval crowns in Spray Paint

Spray paint on a rustic wood

11.75x24in
$120SOLD

Bell's Hopslam and Two Hearted Ale

16x30in
Oil on Canvas
$360 

Buy Now

This is an original oil painting of the great Bell's Brewery's standard crown, along with those of Hopslam and Two Hearted. While Two Hearted and Hopslam are very different beers, they are both hop-centric and wonderfully unique examples of the IPA and DIPA. Of course, living in Oregon, we've only had these beers a handful of times - curse you lucky Michiganders! 

In any case, if you love Hopslam and Two Hearted and you are lacking home decor that combines fine art with your favorite beer, this painting is for you. We shouldn't have it in our house, because clearly we are not worthy.

As with our other beer art, this painting is on a hand-built canvas and ships with a varnished surface and a hanging wire on the back. This painting will last a lifetime, so long as you love it and don't shoot your Red Ryder at it and if you buy this painting, you will be investing in real art that shows your love for the art of craft beer. 

Current Inventory

[dog not included]

The Crowns of Rochefort Spray-Painting

Artist Grade Spray Paint on Canvas
Limited Series of Five
16x30in
$175

SOLD

This is a different breed of beer painting. While we are primarily oil painters, we started our collaborative art practice with spray paint and stencils. This piece is done from original stencils and after a series of five, those stencils will be no more.

Spray paint beer art

Coming soon...

Pelican - Mother of All Storms

Oil on canvas
24x18in
$325
Traded

Traquair House

Mixed Media on Canvas

18x24in
NFS

Thomas Hardy's Ale illustration

Thomas Hardy's Ale was first produced at Eldridge Pope Brewery in 1968, in honor of the 40th anniversary of the death of English author and poet Thomas Hardy. Now decades later, Thomas Hardy's Ale has been proven to be one of the great cellar-worthy beers. After Eldridge Pope folded, O'Hanlon's Brewery briefly produced it, but as of now - no one is producing this great beer. 

This fine art illustration is overflowing with history, containing Hardy himself, the now abandoned Dorchester Brewery the ale was produced at, the first vintage and the last vintage of Thomas Hardy's Ale, along with a map of England with a dot for Dorchester.

Mixed Media on Canvas
24x20in

$180

Buy Now