Front Range Sunset

Front Range Sunset
11 x 14 inches
Oil on wood panel
(c) Bill Brauker

This is one of my favorite views. I have based the painting on a photo I took from the east end of Standley Lake, (about 1/4 mile from my house) looking towards the front range of the Rocky Mountains. We have spectacular sunsets almost every night, and every one is different. It is wonderful to look out and see the mountains, as they range through different shades of blue as the sun dips behind them.

I haven't posted much work on here lately, but I have been busily painting. I completed a small portrait of a friend over the weekend. (I won't be able to post it for several weeks, as it is a surprise.) I'm also working on a 30 x 40 inch painting of a train pulling into Notting Hill Gate Station in London. It is based on this photo I took a couple of years ago.

I also have two others in progress, an 8 X 10 inch still life of a vase of sunflowers, and a 16 x 20 inch of a lovely nude woman from the back on a green couch in a dark green room.

So keep checking in, I should have one or more of these to post soon.

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Please contact me regarding availability and prices of any of my paintings. I will occasionally put some on eBay, but find that the cost of doing business with eBay and the lack of support for sellers has turned me off from using it much.

Click here to see the paintings that I may currently have on eBay.

Click here to go to Bill Brauker Art

Kristen Reitz-Green

Kristen Reitz-Green
9 x 12 inches
Oil on wood panel
(c) Bill Brauker

This is my entry into the portrait exchange at Different Strokes From Different Folks, a wonderful site created by Karin Jurick. This is the second year that artists have sent in photos of themselves, and Karin matches the artists up and they paint each other. It is fun way to end the year.

This is the photo I received.

When I received it, I did not know who she was, but since she paints faster than I, the portrait she did has already been posted, and I now know that the lovely lady is, Kristen Reitz-Green. Check out her blog to see the great portrait she did.

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Please contact me regarding availability and prices of any of my paintings. I will occasionally put some on eBay, but find that the cost of doing business with eBay and the lack of support for sellers has turned me off from using it much.

Click here to see the paintings that I currently have on eBay.

Click here to go to Bill Brauker Art

Frames

Frames
11 x 14 inches
Oil on wood panel
(c) Bill Brauker

I love museums. There is something special about the large spaces, the quiet, the frames and most of all, the art, in all shapes, sizes and styles. To me, the paintings send out a vibration from the painter across the years, that is still alive in the image. It is something you can actually feel and witness as others are enveloped by the energy. A solitary figure in a large room such as this, is not really alone, for the artist is there also.

Contact me to purchase this painting for $500 (free shipping).

Please contact me regarding availability and prices of any of my paintings. I will occasionally put some on eBay, but find that the cost of doing business with eBay and the lack of support for sellers has turned me off from using it much.

Click here to see the paintings that I currently have on eBay.

Click here to go to Bill Brauker Art

My Thanksgiving Adventure

I am really thankful. At 1 pm, on Thanksgiving Day, I was released from St. Anthony's North Hospital. I had only been in for a little over 24 hours, but it was the most unnerving day of my life.

Anne and I had spent Wednesday morning shopping for everything for the Thanksgiving meal. We had only one stop left, at Target, so Anne dropped me off at the Hobby Lobby store nearby, while she finished the shopping. I was in the art section, looking at a paintbrush (#4 filbert). When I reached up to put it back in the metal rack, I felt something wrong with my left arm. It felt as if I had a hold of a live wire. I felt several jolts in my arm, it reminded me of when I was young and would go to my Grandma Brauker's farm, and touch the electric fence, only more intense. I staggered back a step, thinking I have to move, that maybe there was something electrical in the area shocking me. I turned and took two steps toward the front of the store, then looked down and realized my left arm was hanging limp at my side. I tried to lift it, but it wouldn't move. I grabbed it with my right arm and lifted it up. It felt like lifting a 5 pound dead weight. I dropped it in panic and took two or three more steps forward, and realized that suddenly, I could feel my arm and was able to lift it again.

At that moment, my phone rang, Anne was pulling up in front of the store. I walked directly out and got in the car.

To read the rest of my adventure go to: http://brauker.com/Thanksgiving.htm

Sunflowers - Homage to Vincent

Sunflowers - Homage to Vincent
24 x 30 inches
Oil on canvas
(c) Bill Brauker

A few days ago, I happened on a blog called, Follow the Masters. http://followingthemasters.blogspot.com/ The most recent challenge was to paint like Vincent Van Gogh. Well, Vincent is my favorite. I have visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam twice! So this challenge really excited me. It also sent me out to the garage. Why the garage you ask?

In 1979, I bought a 24 x 30 inch canvas and decided, as an exercise, to paint Vincent's, Still Life: Vase With 14 Sunflowers. (The original painting hangs in the National Gallery in London, where I have visited it several times.) I finished the drawing, and had put in some of the background color, when for some reason, (I can't remember why) I stopped. All this time, the unfinished canvas has been with me. I took it from Michigan, to Hawaii for six years, then here to Colorado, where it has lived high up on a shelf in the garage for the past 12 years. Finally its time had come.

Several days ago, I brought it in, set it on the easel, squeezed out large dollops of yellow and orange on my palette and went to work.

What a joy this was to do. It gave me real insight into how great Vincent was. He was doing something, in a way that no one had done before. I have read the books of his letters to his brother, Theo, and know what a struggle he had each month to get enough money to buy paint and canvas, yet when you do a painting such as this, you realize the amazing amount of paint he used. He didn't conserve, he had to do it his way and if it meant using lots of paint he would, because it was what had to be done.

I have always been rather miserly with my paint, putting too little on the palette, because I didn't want to waste it. Not any more. From now on, I will treat the paint as what it is, a medium to the message, and I will not have any fear.

So, after 30 years, the painting I started so long ago, is done. Thank you, Vincent, for your inspiration.


If you have an interest in Vincent's life, you can do no better than to find the books of his letters. In addition to being a great painter, he was an incredible intellect and writer.

It is sad to think that he only did his art work for 10 years, from the age of 27 to 37, when he shot himself. Imagine the paintings there would be had he lived many years.

Commission Paintings

Louise Brooks
24 x 30 inches
Oil on canvas
(c) Bill Brauker

A wonderful collector in Pennsylvania commissioned me to paint Louise Brooks and a smaller painting, The Smoking Man.

The Smoking Man
9 x 12 inches
Oil on canvas
(c) Bill Brauker

If you want to commission a painting, please email me.

Golden Trail

Golden Trail
16 x 20 inches
Oil on canvas panel
(c) Bill Brauker

This painting is based on a photo I took a couple of weeks ago. It is about two miles from my house, on the western end of Standley Lake. I loved all the golden colors as they flowed across the fields.

Contact me to purchase this painting for $300.

Please contact me regarding availability and prices of any of my paintings. I will occasionally put some on eBay, but find that the cost of doing business with eBay and the lack of support for sellers has turned me off from using it much.

Click here to see the paintings that I currently have on eBay.

Click here to go to Bill Brauker Art