Steve Allrich : Paintings

Slow Road Home

2010-05-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

Slow Road Home

20 x 24 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$4,000.

Barn in Summer

2010-03-10T18:54:00.000-08:00

Barn in Summer
20 x 24 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$4,000.

North, Road

2010-02-11T15:03:00.000-08:00

North, Road

$3,000.

Midsummer

2010-01-05T05:56:00.000-08:00

Midsummer

20 x 20 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
Sold

A Summer Like This

2009-07-10T15:54:00.000-07:00

A Summer Like This

18 x 18 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$3,000.

Into a Lemon Sky

2009-07-09T18:38:00.000-07:00

Into a Lemon Sky

10 x 20 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$1,800.

A Lingering Shimmer

2009-05-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

A Lingering Shimmer
18 x 18 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$3,000.

The Afterthought of Morning

2009-05-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

The Afterthought of Morning

$3,000.

Beach Day

2009-05-22T15:51:00.000-07:00

Beach Day
12 x 16 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$1,800.

Under a June Sky

2009-05-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

Under a June Sky
12 x 12 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$1,500.

Trailing the Stillness

2009-05-22T15:41:00.000-07:00

Trailing the Stillness

10 x 10 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$1,200.

A Cool Blue Plentitude

2009-05-22T15:32:00.000-07:00

A Cool Blue Plentitude

16 x 20 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$3,000.

Beach Music

2009-05-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

Beach Music
20 x 20 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
Sold

Marsh at Dusk

2009-05-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

Marsh at Dusk

12 x 12 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$1,500.

Steve Allrich Bio

2009-05-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

Steve Allrich is a 1980 graduate of the American Academy of Art in Chicago where he studied under artist Eugene Hall, painting figures and portraits directly from life, as well as plein air landscapes on location. His latest work is focused squarely on the landscape, capturing less detail in favor of mood and atmosphere. New canvases convey a timeless sense of place with a spontaneous, painterly quality that vibrates with light.

Steve was featured on the Boston television show Chronicle: Cape Light- Cape Cod as seen through the eyes of five artists. From The Copley Society of Boston to Canyon Road in Santa Fe, he has exhibited his work in solo, group, invitational and juried exhibitions, garnering numerous awards, including the Oklahoma Art Workshops, Northern Colorado Art Association national juried show and the Salamagundi Club in New York.

His book, Oil Painting for the Serious Beginner (Watson-Guptill Publications, NY, 1996) has sold over 50,000 copies.

Steve Allrich is also a screenwriter. His script The Canyon was filmed on location in Arizona and Utah. Distributed by Truly Indie, The Canyon stars Will Patton, Yvonne Strahovski and Eion Bailey. Steve's next two film projects are currently in pre-production with Zero Gravity Management, Santa Monica, CA.

Steve and his wife Karina Allrich (artist and gluten-free blogger) live in Los Angeles. They have two sons: composer/musician Colin C (aka Slighter) and up-and-coming screenwriter Alex Allrich.

First Light

2009-04-26T08:07:00.000-07:00

First Light

16 x 20 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$3,000.

High Tide, Salt Marsh

2009-04-26T08:05:00.000-07:00

High Tide, Salt Marsh

16 x 20 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$3,000.

June Morning

2009-04-26T08:01:00.000-07:00

June Morning

16 x 20 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$3,000.

Dune and Sky

2009-04-26T07:58:00.000-07:00

Dune and Sky
12 x 12 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$1,500.

Strawberry Moon

2009-04-15T11:46:00.000-07:00

Strawberry Moon

12 x 12 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$1,500.

A Wedge of Blue

2009-04-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

A Wedge of Blue

$1,500.

Cove, Morning

2009-04-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

Cove, Morning

12 x 12 inches | oil | ©2009 Steve Allrich
$1,500.

Looking West

2008-08-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Morning Sky

2008-08-23T10:54:00.001-07:00

Hillside, Evening

2008-08-15T12:27:00.000-07:00

Marsh Haze

2008-08-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

Marsh at Morning

2008-08-15T12:22:00.001-07:00

Provincetown Sky

2008-08-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

Twilight Path

2008-08-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

Twilight Path

Moonrise

2008-08-15T12:05:00.000-07:00

Artist's Statement

2008-08-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

Artists are particularly and uniquely unsuited to survive in the world. We are, as a rule, sensitive, introspective, vulnerable, questioning and thin-skinned. Many of us do not play well with others. We are notoriously poor business people (usually because we neither care about nor understand the world of finance) and spend our days and nights grappling with issues and ideas that most people regard at best as self-indulgent and incomprehensible, and at worst as downright subversive.

We can't help it. Art is, for me and most of the serious artists I know, a way of life. It's not just something we do. And I think it defines us in a way that goes far beyond the manner in which most people's careers define them.

I love the process of painting, of putting a blob of paint ('blob' is a highly technical painting term, and definitely not recommended for use by beginners) on a piece of canvas, manipulating it into another blob of paint and seeing what happens; I love the fact that it's unpredictable, that what worked yesterday may not - in fact, probably won't - work today; I love looking at and reacting to patterns of light and shadow on almost anything: a dead tree laying in tall grass, the graceful arch of an ochre dune against a blue sky, a woman's shoulder.

As artists, it behooves us to frequently examine why we paint or sculpt or draw or sketch or whatever. If we paint because we want to be rich and famous, or because we think it's relaxing, or because someone's sister-in-law heard that painting is great therapy and thanks to Grumbacher is off Prozac now, or because Uncle Harold, who never had a lesson in his life, watched that German guy on TV and now has happy paintings hanging in Motel 6s throughout the West, chances are we're painting for the wrong reasons.

Most good painters paint because they love to. Most great painters paint because they have to. It's almost too arduous to do for any other reasons. Dealing with and overcoming the obstacles we face in becoming good painters forces us to change and grow as people. Sometimes it's not pretty and sometimes it's not fun. We often have to confront ugly and unpleasant truths about ourselves along the way. Sometimes it's pure, unadulterated agony. But at other times it's incredible - exciting, surprising, liberating, fulfilling. Kind of like life.

I like being an artist. I like not having a job. I like waking up in the morning and not knowing exactly what the day holds for me. I like being my own boss. I especially like being in a position where no one tells me what do (in theory, anyway).

When I was just starting out as a painter, and not making any money, I spent a lot of time trying to convince people that painting was my job: my parents, when they wondered where they had gone wrong; friends, who would exchange knowing glances and murmur, “I always knew he was a little odd”; my first wife, who waited with growing impatience for me to get this painting thing‚ out of my system, and who finally gave up hope that I would ever utter the magic words, “I think I should go to work for your father.” Even complete strangers routinely questioned the validity (not to mention the sanity) of my decision to try to paint for a living. In retrospect, I don’t blame any of them for being suspect; I cringe when I look back at how dismal my prospects were at the time.

But as I’ve become more accustomed to the notion that one can indeed make a living from art, I’ve become equally determined not to think of it as a job. As something I have to do. It’s important for me to keep the fun in it. Because once it ceases to be fun, I’m going to be long gone and hard to find.

Speaking of making a living as a painter, it ain’t easy. There are as many reasons for this as there are stars in the sky (well, maybe not quite that many), but I had an experience almost 20 years ago that I believe gets to the heart of the matter.

I had set up my easel on a country road in Vermont, in front of a small, picturesque farm. My subject: dappled light on a derelict, old flatbed truck parked in a sea of weeds, with a decrepit barn behind it (I love broken-down stuff. Paging Dr. Freud).

While I was painting, a farmer (the owner of said farm) drove by on a tractor, hauling manure (draw your own conclusions). We nodded warily at one another, and he chugged by without a word. He subsequently drove past me at least a dozen times as I painted and never said a thing, although I did catch him glancing suspiciously at my painting once or twice as he passed by.

I finished, and was packing up to leave, when he drove up, shut off his tractor and asked to see the painting. He liked it (to our mutual surprise) and asked how much I wanted for it. I thought for a moment, and then quoted him a dirt-cheap price. After all, he’d been nice enough not to shoot me; and I figured that if I could leave with enough cash to fill the car with gas, buy lunch, and put a down payment on a couple of tubes of Cadmium Yellow Light, I’d be happy as a clam.

When he heard the price, the farmer looked at me like I’d just questioned the virtue of his only daughter. He snorted in disgust, hacked a slimy wad on the pavement and said, “Hell, I could buy a pig for that.” Then he started up his tractor and drove away.

That’s why it’s hard to make a living as a painter.

- Steve Allrich