The Western Landscape: An Interview with Dave Santillanes

Hi John,

Dave Santillanes is a Colorado-based fine artist focusing in landscapes of the American west. His work stands out for its dynamic compositions and strong sense of atmosphere, achieved by clearly controlled values. In addition to being an award-winning painter, he is a sought-after painting instructor and mentor. He joined BoldBrush from his Colorado studio to discuss his influences, education, and studio practice, as well as some of the regional painters of the American West who informed his aesthetic.

Enjoy,

BoldBrush Studio Team

He is largely self-taught as a painter; although he briefly studied fine art in college and took one or two painting workshops, he feels that his most important skills were learned through trying things out for himself. As a kid, he always loved to draw and always wanted to become a full-time artist. But, like many aspiring artists without real-life mentors, he had no idea how to make that a practical reality. While attending Colorado State University, he started in the fine art department, but felt the lack of concrete information. He switched majors, first to history and then to graphic design, in a search for a major that would combine his passions with practicality. After graduating in graphic design, he began to gravitate back to painting. "I didn't really paint until after college. But all of my art heroes were painters, so I started to get into it myself. Richard Schmid, Clyde Aspevig, the California impressionists such as William Wendt and Edgar Payne - I started to study these artists, and realized that every single one of them painted out-of-doors. So I started painting out of doors. I was out in the mountains a lot anyways, hiking and backpacking, so I got a painting kit that I could fit in my backpack and whenever I went for a hike I would bring it along. That's how I evolved into landscape painting - I was following in the footsteps of the painters I admired."

In the year after college, he took an accidental gap year that ended up being a fortunate choice. He moved to a ski town in the Colorado mountains, where he worked on the mountain as a 'liftie' and at a picture frame shop on the weekends. His plan was to find a job in graphic design, but he quickly found out that landing a full-time job in graphic design in a small ski town is not an easy thing. "So I just worked a couple of jobs, skied, and painted instead. I had a makeshift studio in a ski closet locker - it was outside, in the middle of winter, heated with only a space heater! But I really wanted to figure some things out, so I made it work. And then I just kept painting after I moved back to my home town."

He did many odd jobs during these first few years, as he knew by now that his main focus was learning to paint. "During this time, in my early twenties, I knew of some artists my age who were already successful painters with name recognition and gallery representation. I was still learning; I had just one painting, but I decided to shop it around to galleries. Doors could not have shut faster! And honestly it would not make sense, as a gallery, to take on an artist with just one painting to his name and no reputation. That was my one big attempt to take a shortcut, and it make me realize the shortcut wasn't going to work and I was in it for the long haul. My thought process was that I was going to do this anyways whether I was successful or not, because I loved it, and that mellowed me out. Once I knew I was in it for the long haul, I slowed down and took my time. But the motivation was always there and I was always working at getting better."

Then he got a job at a photo and design lab that worked with Richard Schmid and other local artists, photographing and color-correcting their work. "I worked in the digital imaging department, and in fact it's a valuable skill that I still use all the time - I use photoshop frequently to critique work in online workshops. It was a great day job, if you have to have a day job, because I was working with great artists and their paintings. In fact, I did the color-correction for the photographs in Richard Schmid's book Alla Prima. Really, the connections were perfect for what I wanted to do. Don't think I didn't study every single one of the paintings I worked on, to figure out what it was that made them work. I was still painting as often as I could, but I worked there for about twelve years before I made the jump to full-time art. During that time, I kept painting and painting until I had gained enough of a following and name recognition. It was a slow and steady process. One of the cool things about working at a small company was that I had a space of my own; I would bring my paintings into work, just set them there, and think about them throughout the day, because I didn't want to stop painting. It helped me feel like I was in the process during the work day, which was huge. I could look at the painting throughout the day and think about what was bothering me, and then take it home and work on it at night. So I was never really out of the process, even when I was at work."

Although he was looking very carefully at the work of the artists he admired, he was never one to take classes, and mostly learned by a process of learning from his own mistakes. He took just one workshop, when he was beginning oil painting, from Skip Whitcomb. "That was very helpful, but not so much for the painting aspects as the simple technical things, like organizing your palette according to value or holding a brush at the end rather than at the ferrule, the things that are too obvious to be included in a book but you never think of for yourself!"

Many of the artists he admires were based in the western U.S., and his own work also has the stylistic flavor of the American west, a regional distinction that is subtle but recognizable. Dave thinks there are several reasons for both the distinct regional style and for his own participation in that tradition. "For one thing, the contemporary artists Clyde Aspevig and Richard Schmid lived in Colorado, so early on I saw their work quite a bit in person, not knowing their international reputations but just admiring the work. And then I learned that Clyde Aspevig studied the work of Edgar Payne, and I kind of leapfrogged backward from there - you study the work of your heroes and find out their influences and extend back through art history to where it all began. But Clyde was really my introduction to all of these western artists."

He added that he thinks the California Impressionists, of whom Edgar Payne was one, were a strong defining influence on the look of western art and their stylistic choices have filtered down to the present generation of landscape painters. West coast artists tend to use vibrant color and have a stronger sense of atmospheric perspective than their East coast counterparts. This is in large part due to the nature of the dramatic light and landscape of the American west, but it's also a part of the legacy handed down by this branch of impressionism - the California Impressionists were working at a defining time in the culture of the west and have shaped the tradition of painting there. There was also a personal appeal for Dave in their interpretation of impressionism. "I think the California Impressionists had such a strong influence out west that they have infiltrated many artists' work, whether they be fine artists or concept artists, even if they don't really know about them as a group. The California Impressionists are an extension of the Impressionism that started in France, of course, but where they're unique, and what I really liked about the California impressionists in particular, was that they paid more attention to linear detail. I was coming from a very tight, linear drawing background and transitioning into painting. Drawing is so different from painting - I liked the more linear and representational emphasis of the California Impressionists."

He hasn't limited his study to Western landscapists though: "I can't even count all of the influences I have now - there are so many artists I've encountered in passing and I'll incorporate elements of their work into my own. And part of my individual style comes from not following just one genre or school of art but being open to everyone and all styles. My wife studied with Zhaoming Wu in San Francisco, and his style is very different from the influences I've listed, but I really study his edges - he's a master at the application of edges. I think, whenever I'm stuck on something, about how the masters would handle the problem. It slowly infiltrates your own way of painting and problem solving. And on the matter of influences in general, I think it's important to be open to all different styles, even the abstract artists - all of them can be beneficial to your own personal style."

Now, as an established artist, he has developed a studio practice informed by all of these influences and experiences. Much of his current practice is large-scale studio landscapes based off plein air studies. "I still love to go out for a day into the mountains and just paint, and then bring those studies back to the studio and develop them into even better pieces - better in the sense of composing and telling the story that I want to tell. The plein air is just one step in the process, but a very valuable one."

When painting outside, he ranks his priorities according to what information he most needs to capture for his larger paintings. "The number one priority in plein air is atmosphere and light; blocking in shadow shapes because that's where I think the atmosphere is captured. Getting the color of nature right to describe those elements. After color, light, and atmosphere, the overall 'story' or focal point is important. Often in nature we'll see four or five things at once that we want to paint - and to me, that's four or five different paintings, but sometimes I'll throw it all in one study and then divide it up in the studio into different paintings with different ideas. Those would be the top four elements I focus on in outdoor painting. And then composition is fifth in my list of priorities. I'll obsess about composition in the studio, but when I'm outside there really isn't time. I might move some elements of the scene around, to get a start at what I'm seeing as a composition, but won't really refine it till I get back to the studio. And I do the same thing with a camera, I'll snap a photo of something that might make a nice composition. But back in the studio there are always changes to make the composition better."

Once he's back in the studio with studies and photographs in hand, he looks at the plein air and contemplates how he wants to work it into a finished painting. Often, he does smaller studies of the plein air study on a 9x12'' or 12x16'' board, using the original plein air and photos as reference, the painting for atmospheric detail and the photos for linear detail. "That secondary study is a very fluid composing surface. For me, it's the most liberating part of the process; there are no expectations whatsoever. Everything is moveable, I don't have to get it right the first time. I can move things mid-painting, it's easy when you use oil. Oil fits the way I paint because I never know, right off, how I'm going to fit things together in that secondary study. I have to do things by feel, I'll shift things this way and that. I'll even do it when working outdoors occasionally. If I were a watercolor painter, where you really can't change things, I would do far more planning. But since I don't have to plan, I just think about it as I go. And if it doesn't work, I've only spent a few hours on it."

His finished landscapes show the planning and practice that he puts into each piece. They have carefully designed compositions and a strong sense of light and air that makes the atmosphere palpable. Like the California impressionists who inspired him, there's a pleasing balance between the atmospheric effects and the linear structure. "I think I probably do push the atmosphere on purpose now, more than when I first started. When I first started painting I was accidentally pushing it, and then I realized that it created a very pleasing effect and that it was ok to push it on purpose. If you want something to sit back in your painting, you can only do it through atmospheric effect; it's the most powerful way to create depth. And that again comes from studying the California Impressionist paintings. Impressionist paintings are all about capturing the atmosphere, and when you stand in front of one of these paintings you feel like you're really there; atmosphere is the most powerful way to capture a sense of place. When I first started painting I knew I wanted to capture that, but had no idea of how to do it, so I just kept making mistakes and figuring it out, reading and studying paintings and practicing from life. It used to freak me out when my plein air painting looked so different from the photos I took - it was so different I wondered if my painting was ok! But I quickly realized that I was drawn to plein air work because it captured atmosphere in a way that a photograph never could."

His sense of design, though, he credits to his early work as a graphic designer and photo editor. "It really shaped my sensibility and spatial awareness. It's amazing how much learning how to place text on a page so that it looks good helped my painting. It's all about shapes. You wouldn't think there would be any correlation between graphic design and composing a painting, but they are virtually identical in my thought process. My idea of a nicely composed ad was simplification, and it's the same thing with a painting. If you try to put everything into a single painting it will look terrible, but if you simplify down to just one impactful area, it will be very powerful. The same goes for ad design. Simplifying down to a single message. That influences my sense of design more than anything else."

Dave, an experienced instructor, has several different venues for teaching and mentoring. He has an online painting school through his website that features video-driven instruction. He also offers a mentorship online that meets every month and is part of a mentorship program called Leveling Up, which is like an interactive online workshop, that features master artists from a variety of disciplines. He added that he doesn't really distinguish between beginners and advanced artists when he's teaching, because wherever his student's skill level lies, he has realized he has his own specific set of experiences to offer them. "Once a group of very professional portrait painters wanted to take a workshop from me and I wondered what I could possibly teach these internationally-known figure painters. I decided I was just going to teach the way I teach every workshop I do, and they told me they got a lot out of it because I talked about atmosphere in a way they had never learned it. So I think that there is something for everyone. A beginner might not pick up everything I throw at them, but the things they do pick up will help them just as much as the different things that a seasoned professional might gather. I teach all levels, and want to help each of my students as much as I can. And for the mentorships, I work with artists from all media backgrounds, because even though I work mainly in oils, the principles and concepts behind a good painting apply to all styles and materials." He also has several upcoming in-person workshops for 2022, in locations ranging from Mexico to Alaska - to learn more, you can go to his website:dasanti.com.

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