Category Archives: About Me

#WorkshopWednesday

Just a short public service announcement today: Please join me (if you can, barring the weather) next week at Yosemite National Park for my annual workshop! With budget cuts and poor funding being a stark reality for our national parks, I am proud to support this beautiful California landmark and climbers’ paradise in whatever way possible. Proceeds from class fees, materials purchases from the Art Center, and sales from my paintings go to The Yosemite Conservancy. I hope to see you there!

Read my past entries on Yosemite here.

Elsewhere (click to read):

Frank Eber workshop in Yosemite National Park

Yosemite Conservancy Blog

Frank Eber workshop in Yosemite National Park

Yosemite Conservancy on Facebook

Frank Eber workshop in Yosemite National Park

Yosemite Conservancy on Twitter

Frank Eber on Instagram

Plein Air Magazine Dec/Jan 2017

I am very pleased to be one of the featured artists in this month’ Plein Air Magazine! It is a four page article featuring an interview (done by phone) where I talk about my painting process and philosophy as well as some of my paintings. I want to thank the editor Steve Doherty, for including my work! The magazine is available at Barnes and Nobles book stores.

American Impressionist Society and New Brushes!!


While I was teaching in Albuquerque I got word that my painting won the ‘Award of Excellence for Watermedia’ at the 17th Annual National Juried Exhibition, held at the Howard Mandville Gallery in Kirkland Washington. This exhibition runs until October 30, 2016. If you’re in the area, please check it out! Some of the best painters in the country are part of it. It is 90% oil paintings, so I am very happy to have won an award with a watercolor.

Watercolors are generally ignored in the wider world of art. Especially galleries don’t like them, because they are mostly framed behind glass and they claim that they can’t sell them. The medium is arguably much harder to master and more expensive to frame, yet watercolors fetch only a fraction of the money an oil painting would. It has been like this historically and is unlikely changing any time soon. That’s why it is so important to get this recognition. Maybe it will help all of us watercolor artists.

I am happy to announce that I officially have my own brush line! I am very proud to work with DaVinci, one of the oldest brush manufacturer in the world. Today, almost all brushes are made in China, India and Sri Lanka. In the western world there are only a few original and small companies left that actually make brushes on-site. They are hand made by artisans who do three and five year apprenticeships! Nuremberg, Germany was always known as a brushmaker city and DaVinci is continuing this tradition despite all the cheap and low quality competition out there. These brushes come in three sizes (2, 4 and 6). They have newly developed, fully synthetic hair that holds the same amount of water a natural hairbrush would. Bristles never break and no animals were harmed in the process. Please check my website for more information!

Hillside Fine Art welcomes my work!

I am very happy to announce that my work is now represented by Hillside Fine Art in Claremont, California.
I am the only watercolor artist in a gallery that is full of oil paintings. There are many big name artists of the California Art Club on the walls and I am quite honored to have my work exhibited with them! I hope I can do well; I have no idea, only time will tell!

I will have my first ever solo exhibition at Hillside in September! Very excited about that. Reception is scheduled for September 5, 2015. Details will follow. Please come on by if you’re in the area!

The ‘fearful’ brush stroke!

This may sound like esoteric babble, but I am convinced that it is absolutely essential to paint like we mean it! In my workshops, I have met many students who are potentially great painters but are held back by a crippling lack of confidence in their painting abilities.
They are controlled by fears and believe me, a fearfully applied brush stroke shows! Therefore, I will now put up a sign like the ones you might see in the Zoo:

important

When painting, act like you know what you’re doing. Paint like a master painter and ignore all the other clutter in your head. I know negative thoughts have a way to keep creeping back, but just do like they recommend while meditating: ignore the thoughts that pop up and focus on the task at hand which is applying pigment on paper. Nothing else.
We are not interested in what the painting looks like later on or when it’s done. Stay in the moment.

Maybe some of you have heard this great saying that might apply just perfectly for this kind of situation: Fake it until you make it!

I have just completed teaching my last workshop of the year and I am pretty exhausted. For the remainder of the year, I will be focusing on my own work. I will be part of an exhibition at Studios on the park in December and January and there’s still work to be done for that.
One of the students in my workshop was visiting from Norway and she bought two of my paintings! Thank you, Astrid!
Maybe I should also mention that she mainly came to visit her son who lives here in California? But that would take away from it, wouldn’t it! Anyway…